


Murky Tungsten Memories

by nsfwscream



Category: Garrett P.I. - Glen Cook
Genre: I haven't actually read past the beginning of FSH but WHO CARES, Implied Sexual Content, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Memory Loss, NaNoWriMo 2019, Other, after Petty Pewter Gods but before Faded Steel Heat, and later Explicit Sexual Content!, canon? i don't know her, if I could have found a way to drag Crask and Sadler into this I would have bc I Love Them, there is not NEARLY enough Garrett fic and I am attempting to fix that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:07:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22325290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nsfwscream/pseuds/nsfwscream
Summary: “Do you know how often I get caught up with the kind of lunatics who can pull off magic this big?” Morley asked. I didn’t think he was actually looking for a response. I kept my mouth shut and he didn’t keep me waiting for the answer. “Almost never, because I don’t have the survival instincts of a lemming. The only times I do get dragged into it are when you’ve gone off on one of your ridiculous, self-righteous crusades.” I wasn’t a fan of the way he’d framed it, but I was man enough to admit he was right.Garrett and Morley wake up to find they're both missing a week of time. They're left with little in the way of explanations and no way of knowing who'd done this to them, much less why. There's no telling what exactly lies in the time they've lost, some of which they might not like to remember at all, but the consequences of leaving that stone unturned may very well be disastrous.
Relationships: Morley Dotes/Garrett
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *kicks in door to fandom* COME GET Y'ALL'S JUICE

It was too early to be awake. I knew this without even needing to open my eyes, and came to that conclusion entirely from the sunlight doing its best to burn a hole through my eyelids. If there was light this bright coming through my window, it was still before noon, when only lingering ratmen and Dean thought it was a reasonable hour to be awake. I wasn’t quite sure just yet what had actually woken me up. I’d slept through the suns best attempts to wake me plenty of times before, and there was no Dean threatening to douse me with a bucket of water. Even The Goddamn Parrot was being quiet. I wasn’t awake enough to wonder if that was a good or bad sign, but I quickly decided I didn’t care. I proceeded to turn my face into my pillow with a sigh.

Ah. So that’s what had woke me up. 

There was a back pressed snug against my front, and as the warm body under my arm shifted, a firm rear end wiggled enticingly. I grinned, spreading my fingers over the smooth stomach of my bedmate. I didn’t remember any of what must have happened last night, but Garrett wasn’t one to turn away what was undoubtedly a lovely lady from his bed. I unturned my head away from my pillow, and instead nuzzled into the back of my new lady friends neck, my eyes still closed. I laid a kiss on the soft skin of her bare shoulder, taking in the oddly familiar smell. 

It wasn’t the way Tinnie smelled, which made sense since we were currently in the ‘off’ phase of our on again, off again relationship. I was also reasonably sure it didn’t belong to any of the other usual suspects. It smelled dark and a little bit spicy, subtle in a way that told me most or maybe even all of it wasn’t from a dousing of liberally applied perfume. 

While I contemplated the identity of my mystery woman, though I still wasn’t really concerned enough with that to bother opening my eyes yet, my lady shifted again. She practically purred as I pressed another kiss to her skin, between her shoulders this time. Holy hell, if I hadn’t already been on my way, that sound alone would have been enough to get me wound up. It was a lovely thing, low and pleased and full of a promise that if I kept playing my cards right, I might get a repeat of the show I couldn’t recall from last night. 

I wondered, not for the first time, how it is I managed to attract the kind of women who normally wouldn’t go within a mile of a guy like me. I wasn’t upset about it, no, I just wished I knew exactly what it was, so maybe I’d be able to replicate it more often. Maybe if I did, I could avoid putting my foot in my mouth quite so much. That’s Garrett, quick as a whip, always articulate, except when it comes to making a good impression with a beautiful woman. 

I would adamantly deny any claim that I made an ass of myself plenty, even when there weren’t any lovely ladies involved. Lies and slander, all of it. Pay no attention to the pigs leaping from my roof and taking flight. 

I could tell my lady was starting to wake up, making soft little encouraging noises as I mouthed along her neck and up to her ear. She covered my hand on her stomach with one of her own, threading long, agile fingers with mine. For a moment I was distracted by the idea of what else she could do with those hands. Her slim body fit against mine perfectly, like she’d always been meant to be there and wasn’t I an idiot for not having noticed sooner? 

Then a part of my anatomy very interested in what was going on made itself known, nudging up against that pert bottom and her tailbone, and she froze. All the smouldering she’d been doing flamed out, her muscles tensing and hand gone stiff over mine in surprise. I was more than a little confused. I thought things had been going well, given how receptive she’d seemed to the idea of a repeat performance. But while Mrs. Garrett might not have raised a perfect gentleman, she certainly hadn’t raised her boys to ignore when a lady started to seem less than interested.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. Or tried to ask at least, what actually came out of me was less like human speech and more like a barely intelligible mumble, the words muffled where my mouth was still pressed to her skin. When no response was forthcoming and she still hadn’t relaxed after a few moments, I finally opened my eyes. 

The first thing I saw was dark hair, short and soft where it tickled my cheek and nose. My preference might have tended towards redheads, but didn’t mean I wasn’t fully capable of appreciating how the soft waves caught the morning light, or the way a few locks of hair curled around the shell of one pointed ear. 

Huh. I couldn’t remember ever meeting an elven woman who matched the description I had so far, who had to be a breed since she wasn’t even smaller, but then again the time leading up to us evidently falling into bed together was notably absent from my memory anyway. 

I had the brief and sobering thought that she might be some relative of Morley’s, what with him being the only dark elf I knew personally and thus the likely candidate for having made introductions. Add to that the identical skin tone, and I hoped that I hadn’t signed myself up for a less than friendly discussion by sleeping with her. I really hoped she wasn’t Spud’s mother. Not out of some ridiculous aversion to that concept, but because then that meant she was Morley’s sister. That would be a whole other degree of potential misstep than if she was just a cousin or some other, more distant relative. 

I didn’t know the situation with Spud’s father, whether he was alive or dead or what. If he was still in the picture, then that was just one more person who’d want to have an even less friendly chat than Morley might. I also wasn’t fond of the idea that I might have taken a page out of Morley’s book either, mostly because if he didn’t take issue with the situation in and of itself, I’d never hear the end of it from him.

I got myself up onto an elbow with only minimal struggle, blinking against the too bright sun bathing the room. Whatever it was that had obscured my memories of last night, it hadn’t been alcohol. There wasn’t so much as a twinge behind my eyes to indicate a hangover. I was no lightweight, but if I had drunk enough to not remember going to bed with a beautiful woman, then I’d be in a world of pain right now. And she was doubtlessly beautiful if she was Morley’s sister. Morley himself was aggravatingly handsome, enough that I wasn’t ashamed to admit to myself that I was jealous, and I’d be shocked if she was anything approaching homely. 

It took a minute for my eyes to adjust, but once they did I was even more confused than before. This wasn’t my bedroom like I’d assumed. Which meant we weren’t in my bed either, and I didn’t recognize this room or the furniture in it. If this was Morley’s sister next to me it couldn’t have belonged to her, since as far as I knew she didn’t live in TunFaire. It also looked lived in, in the way that came from somebody inhabiting a space for a while, without being rundown in the way a hotel or rented room tended to be. 

I’d even say it was homey, though that wasn’t to say it was at all shabby. Some of the furniture was a little worn, but all of it had been taken care of. Whoever lived here had clearly put in some effort to make it comfortable, and just like my lady’s smell, the room around us was familiar in a way I still couldn’t put my finger on. I was sure I’d never seen it before, but the familiarity persisted, the answer on the tip of my tongue but frustratingly out of reach. I was sure the Dead Man would happily point out the obvious clues I’d missed later, but for now I was at a loss.

I abandoned the fruitless endeavor of trying to identify where I was, and instead turned to the question of who exactly I was with. I’d pulled my hand off my lady’s stomach to rest on her hip when I’d been getting an elbow under me, and it was slim, just like the rest of her. That was a bit surprising, since I usually went for curvy, not that it apparently made much difference to bits of me still standing at attention. Down, Garrett, you still don’t have a handle on what’s going on yet. She was still tense against me, the hand she’d had over mine now tightly gripping the edge of the sheet covering us both, completely still like she was too shocked to move. 

I got a good look at her back side, now that my eyes had adjusted to the light, and was a little surprised by how muscled it was. Not enormously so, she was no Saucerhead Tharpe, but more than I’d expect from any woman besides Winger. Probably about as much as I imagined Morley would be, and it would make sense if the propensity to staying so trim ran in the family. I’d always wondered how he managed to stay so fit, and that could certainly explain it. Figures that he’d luck out and not have to work so hard at keeping in shape, while I was stuck doing it the old fashioned way. 

A creeping suspicion that I refused to acknowledge was lurking in the back of my mind, but it was gaining more ground by the minute. The only solution I could see was to rip the bandage off and take a peek at just who was laying next to me, to end the speculation once and for all, but I couldn’t completely overcome my hesitation.

Now it was my turn to be frozen. Even anxious as I was to be done with the indecision, the answer that was quickly becoming more and more plausible kept me from doing anything to resolve the matter. Seconds ticked into minutes without either of us moving, neither willing to be the first to acknowledge the reality we were both well aware of at this point. 

I’d shifted my hips away after my bedmate’s initial freeze and now I was immeasurably thankful I had; part of me apparently hadn’t gotten the memo and was still raring to go, unwanted revelations be damned. I squeezed my eyes shut, desperately willing certain bits of my anatomy to cut it the hell out. I didn’t want to think about how much more awful this would be if my problem was still noticeable once one of us finally acknowledged the situation. I didn’t want to be the one to do it, but it was starting to look like I might have to, if only so I could hightail it out of here before things had the chance to escalate once the tentative peace was broken. 

I was just steeling myself to speak up, wracking my brain for what I could say that wouldn’t just make the whole situation worse, when I realized the body next to mine was suddenly gone. Morley had slid out from underneath the hand I’d yet to move from his hip, casually slipping out of bed as if he hadn’t been having some kind of internal crisis of his own just a few seconds ago. He was exactly as naked as I was, which was to say completely, and on the outside he seemed no more bothered now than he’d been any of the times I’d interrupted him and one of his conquests, though the usual annoyance was notably absent. In fact he was pointedly not looking at me at all, calmly browsing the contents of an old but well cared for wardrobe on the other side of the room. 

Morley Dotes fell somewhere between acquaintance and friend, depending on the day and his mood at the time. Mostly, he landed closer to being a friend than not. Some days I might even consider him my best friend, though if he ever returned the sentiment he hadn’t ever said so. Neither of us were big on effusive displays of emotion when there wasn’t a naked woman involved. For all that I thought unkindly of him, when I was in a mood and remembering the times he’d maneuvered me for his own ends, he’d never left me hanging when I really needed his help.

“So,” I said, stopped there while I tried to think of what to say, still at a loss. Morley just kept digging through his clothes, pulling some out that met the standard of whatever he’d been searching for, and began dressing without any rush. My eyes strayed a little too far south and I caught myself staring at his ass, which had no business being so shapely. I tried to remind myself that this was Morley, not some woman who just happened to look eerily similar. It didn’t help at all. I flushed and tore my eyes away to stare at a bare section of wall, sat up and bent my knees so my persistent problem hopefully wouldn’t be so obvious. I cleared my throat, tried again. “Morley.” 

“We don’t have to talk about it, Garrett.” He finally graced me with a quick glance, then his eyes were skipping around the room, either looking for something or just trying to avoid meeting my gaze directly. 

“Okay.” I said that, and on some level I meant it, but the part of my brain that latched onto cases was already digging its teeth in, stubbornly demanding I get to the bottom of my missing time. “Just one question.” Morley turned narrowed eyes on me, his frown forming the familiar annoyed look I was used to being on the receiving end of. Usually when I’d dug my heels in beyond all good reason, and his advice, determined to get answers. Morley never passed up the opportunity to compare me to a white knight, clanking around in pursuit of truth and justice in rusted old armor. I had to concede the comparison was not without merit on occasion.

“I thought you just agreed to drop it,” Morley said, crossing his arms and eyeing me, visibly wary. I knew how he felt. I wasn’t too keen on diving too deeply into what this by all appearances looked like either, but something about all this felt off. Or at least more off than it should.

“I did. I will.” I insisted, but he didn’t seem too convinced. “Just like I said, one question.” For a few moments Morley looked like he was going to flat out refuse. Then he breathed a quick, harsh breath through his nose and nodded sharply, settling back to lean against the wall by his still open wardrobe.

“Fine, what?” He looked resigned now, like he just wanted this all to be over with. For some reason that stung a little, though I wasn’t at all prepared to examine why that might be right now. I pushed it to the back of my mind and bulled ahead with my usual grace instead.

“Do you remember anything?” I didn’t have to specify what about, that much was obvious. I watched his expression as it rapidly shifted a few times, too quick for me to catch much of it, before it finally landed on a thoughtful frown.

“No, I don’t.” His gaze turned inward as he thought. I seized the opportunity to squeeze a few more questions in while he was distracted, hoping that I’d piqued his curiosity enough for him to forget our one-question agreement. 

“What’s the last thing you do remember?” More thoughtful silence. Morley even closed his eyes, eyebrows pitching together as he fought to drag something out of the same yawning gap I assumed he had too. I wasn’t having any luck with it myself, but I hadn’t put as much effort in yet as he was right now. I hoped he’d remember something that might help jog my own memory. What can I say, I might need answers but I still hated work, and this definitely classified as it.

I don’t know how long it took before Morley opened his eyes again, his attention turned to something across the room. “What day is it?” He seemed distracted enough that I wasn’t sure that he was even talking to me. He could have just been thinking out loud, not expecting me to give him an answer. I answered anyway to the best of my recollection, watching him walk around the foot of the bed to get in arms reach of a short cabinet I hadn’t paid much mind to before. He pulled what looked like a small journal from on top of it, flipping through to a page somewhere in the middle. 

“I didn’t peg you as the type to keep a diary,” I said. Sometimes my brain to mouth filter gets loose when I’m under stress, and then the sarky remarks come out and run wild without my say so. I think this situation qualified as stressful. Morley shot me an unimpressed look, raising his right eyebrow. Damn! I’d forgotten he’d stolen that particular trick. I missed the monopoly I used to have on it. Next thing I knew he’d be carting the Dead Man away to stash somewhere, and luring Dean in with promises of husbands for his remaining unwed nieces. I could only pray that in the event of such a thing he’d take T. G. Parrot too, but I wasn’t quite that optimistic. Especially since he was the one that had saddled me with that foul-mouthed jungle chicken in the first place.

Morley went back to looking through the journal. “It’s a calendar,” he told me. “Are you sure that’s the day?” I took a minute to think, told him I was as sure as I could be. He flipped a few more pages, frowned at what he found there. Maybe he’d forgotten somebody’s birthday. “We’re missing almost five days.” That left me reeling. I’d been expecting to be missing maybe half a day at most. The way the bizarre flocks to me, that’s only a few degrees removed from normal in my book. Morley being caught up in it too wouldn’t even be that odd, it’s happened once or twice before. 

But for the both of us to be missing nearly five days of time? Adding in whatever the hell had led to waking up here, very naked, very together, and in a very compromising position? I’d realized now that this must be Morley’s room, the one past his office above the Joy House, now The Palms, that I’d never seen before now. Or maybe I’d seen it sometime in the five days I was missing, but for obvious reasons didn’t remember it. I foresaw that line of reasoning was going to get old fast. It was already grating.

I could come up with a few possibilities for how we’d ended up like this, none of them with a lot of specifics at the moment. 

The first option was thus. Either five days ago or sometime during our missing time, someone had laid some serious magic on us, then somehow gotten in here to set us up the way were when we woke up. If they were trying to distract us from something, letting us wake up like this would certainly do it. With anyone else it might have even been enough to throw us off our game so much that we never would have tried to get those missing days back, for fear of what we might remember. And it would have to be some pretty powerful magic. I wasn’t even sure the Dead Man could erase that much time, not so completely that I had no inkling as to what had happened during it. That did beg the question of how they’d gotten into Morley’s place, into his room no less, and presumably with an unconscious me and him along for the ride.

The second possibility started much like the first, but with two separate culprits: one to lay the magical whammy on us, and another to ferry us back here for some unknown purpose. This one admittedly made a little less sense. Making us forget something somebody didn’t want us knowing was clear enough as a motive, but if another party with no relation to the first brought us here and left us like this, what was  _ their _ motive? Who stood to gain anything by lugging us back here and leaving us safe and unharmed, if a little too close for comfort?

The third was that it was only our memories that had been tampered with. That we’d ended up here all on our own, for reasons we could no longer remember. I still wasn’t ready to seriously consider that angle. 

I went through all of this out loud for Morley’s benefit, though I didn’t mention that last one. He didn’t miss that I was leaving something out, and I’m sure he’d already considered that possibility all on his own anyway. Neither of us called the other out on our omissions. 

Morley snapped the journal shut with one hand, putting it back in its spot on the cabinet. Then he crossed his arms over his bare chest and narrowed his eyes at me again. “What did you do, Garrett?” He’d only managed to get as far as pulling on some pants when I’d asked my first question and distracted him, and now he seemed more concerned with laying the blame for this situation on me than putting on a shirt.

“Hey! What makes you think this is my fault?” I couldn’t win for losing. It’s not like I wasn’t in the same boat as him right now, but evidently that didn’t mean anything. Morley just raised an eyebrow at me again, even had the audacity to cock a hip and tilt his head a little as if to say  _ really? _

“Do you know how often I get caught up with the kind of lunatics who can pull off magic this big?” Morley asked. I didn’t think he was actually looking for a response. I kept my mouth shut and he didn’t keep me waiting for the answer. “Almost never, because I don’t have the survival instincts of a lemming. The only times I  _ do _ get dragged into it are when you’ve gone off on one of your ridiculous, self-righteous crusades.” I wasn’t a fan of the way he’d framed it, but I was man enough to admit he was right. 

Near every time I could recall in recent memory, Morley had been my go-to when I needed backup for a case, either as someone to watch my back or to help dig up leads. As the only assassin come entrepreneur come well-known community figure (at least in the Safety Zone) that I knew, he was uniquely qualified to either task. Sometimes I wonder how good of friends we actually are, especially when our mutual acquaintances like to rag on me for only ever showing up when I needed something. But for all that he complained of being dragged into my trouble, he’d yet to actually turn me away. In fact, he often went out of his way to swoop in and pull my ass out of the fire, not that he was shy about pointing that out after the fact.

Plus, Morley was perfectly capable of generating his own trouble without my help. Only his trouble usually had more to do with staying on the Kingpin’s good side as an independent member of the local underworld. He’d built a reputation for himself, and the big players tend to take notice of that, for better or worse. Or, though less frequently these days, his trouble came in the form of the angry husbands of his decidedly more female bedmates. And with both of those he was, with very few exceptions, able to get out of them without my help. 

Gee, wasn’t I special, getting all the looney sorcerer types to myself.

“Alright, it’s probably my fault,” I conceded his point. Arguing about who was to blame would be useless until I knew more. “But we still don’t know why.” I could see Morley restraining himself from rolling his eyes.

“I assume you took a job, then didn’t get out when it would have been smart to.” That was about what I suspected myself, though Morley’s definition of when it was smart to get out was a little different from mine. His idea of it meant walking away with the biggest paycheck for the least risk. Mine wasn’t too dissimilar, but I could get like a dog with a bone when I wanted answers for myself. Especially when there’d been some bumps and bruises applied to my person from parties invested in my early retirement. I gave myself a mental once over, didn’t find anything besides some minor bumps and bruises. Thankfully not in any of the places I’d expect from a roll in the sheets with somebody as acrobatic as I knew Morley to be. Maybe there was hope yet.

“Yes, but what job? And why take out that big of a chunk of time?” He didn’t have an easy answer for that. If it had just been me, whoever did this could have made a convincing show of it if they’d gotten me boozed up enough for a proper hangover and only taken a day of time at the most. I was well known for my love of beer, and I’d gotten a little too enthusiastic when indulging before. But Morley? The hardest thing I’d ever seen him drink was juiced greens. He was never shy about laying any ills I experienced at the feet of my meat-inclusive diet and love of good beer either. The Palms didn’t even serve anything besides wine, and that barely counted as alcohol.

Thankfully all this talking had given my problem time to make itself scarce, and I was confident I’d be able to get to my clothes without Morley catching a glimpse of anything too incriminating. That is, if I could find my clothes. A glance around the room found nothing out of place. Morley kept his room tidier than I would have expected. There was no telltale pile of clothing belonging to either of us, and borrowing something of Morley’s wasn’t really a viable option. I was at least half a foot taller than him, and didn’t have the trim figure afforded by the elven half of his ancestry. Attempting to fit me into one of his shirts or a pair of pants would only end in ripped seams and an unhappy Morley. I settled for pulling the bedsheet loose and gathering it around me, though I had to spare a hand to keep it in place and secure. 

“We need to see the Dead Man,” I announced grimly. As much as I didn’t want him rooting around in my head to see the events of this morning, there was a chance he’d be able to recover the days I was missing. He’d also know if I’d been working any cases, what they were, and what progress I’d made that would have gotten me noticed by whoever had done this. Morley wasn’t happy about the idea. Like most who were aware of the Dead Man’s ability to read minds, he avoided getting close enough the be subject to it whenever possible. I didn’t begrudge him the desire to keep his thoughts and secrets to himself, mostly because I didn’t have that option myself. The Dead Man was over four hundred pounds and had been inhabiting my house for longer than I’d been alive, so there was no avoiding it for me.

I felt more than a little ridiculous when I stood up, wrapped up in the sheet like it was an oversized towel. I must have looked it too, because Morley snickered and grinned, pointy dark elf teeth on full display. I’d never been one for being self-conscious, but I hiked the sheet higher, feeling exposed. 

“Don’t suppose you have anything my size?” I asked. Morley shook his head, walking back to his wardrobe.

“Hold on,” he said, grabbing a shirt from the wardrobe and pulling it over his head. He darted out the door before I could stop him, ignoring my protests. I stopped at the door to his office, unwilling to follow any further in nothing but the sheet. I grumbled to myself as I watched him disappear down the stairs, closing the office door and retreating back to Morley’s bedroom. I’d seen all Morley’s people enter the office with little warning at least once, and I didn’t want word of this to spread any farther than me, Morley, and soon the Dead Man. There was no telling how long it would take Morley to find me something either.

While I waited, I took the opportunity to give Morley’s room a closer look. What can I say, snooping is in my nature, and I was curious. As far as bedrooms went, it was fairly standard. There was the bed, the wardrobe, the cabinet the journal had been on, along with a desk with an unlit lamp and a chair. A sturdy looking chest sat at the foot of the bed, and when I opened it I found some more clothes and a couple pairs of boots. 

I thought about taking a look in the cabinet, but before I had the chance I heard the office door open and shut. A few moments later Morley appeared, carrying a bundle of fabric that he tossed in my general direction. I nearly lost my grip on the sheet trying to catch it, but I managed.

“Spare kitchen uniform,” Morley said by way of explanation. A pair of dark pants and a dingy off-white shirt was what it was. Both were clearly meant for someone of Puddle or Sarge’s considerable girth, but then I guess beggars can’t be choosers. Morley dropped a worn pair of shoes that at least looked close to my size at the foot of the bed.

“You should make sure nothing’s missing,” I suggested as I tried to pull the pants on without dropping the sheet. Normally I wouldn’t be so shy about it, when I’d been in the Marines there wasn’t any kind of privacy and you either adjusted real quick or you just never got clean. But apparently waking up naked and cuddled up with another guy was enough to turn me into a blushing virgin. Ugh, I regretted that comparison as soon as I made it, even if it was only in my own head. I didn’t know if it was better or worse that the guy I’d woken up next to was Morley. There were pros and cons.

Morley took my advice while I struggled with with the sheet, which I’d somehow gotten wrapped around my legs. First he checked the cabinet, then the chest, then the wardrobe. He shot a measuring glance at me, where I was quietly cursing my inability to untangle myself and manage something as simple as putting on a goddamn pair of pants. I could feel the silent judgement in his stare before he knelt by the bed, reaching under the cabinet to pop up a loose floorboard. I couldn’t see what was under there from this angle, and Morley’s examination of it was quick anyway. I finally got myself free and the pants pulled over my hips, and Morley gave the rest of the room a less thorough check while I finished dressing. 

“Nothing’s gone. Or where it shouldn’t be,” he said when he was done. He looked as pleased by that bit of news as I did. Nothing missing or moved meant no leads, which meant we were one step closer to having to see the Dead Man. I was used to dealing with him every day and  _ I _ was dreading it. 

“Great.” I shoved my feet into the shoes Morley had brought me. Turns out they were too big, just like the clothes. I’d tucked as much of the shirt into the pants as a could, but that still left me holding up the too-big waistline. “You have a belt I can borrow?” I felt like a kid trying on his dad’s clothes, the way everything hung off me. Morley must have seen the resemblance too, because he grinned and snickered again. He had the consideration to at least try and stifle it this time. 

He opened the chest, pulled out a belt I wasn’t sure I’d seen him wear before and handed it over. I wasn’t sure that’d I’d ever seen him wear a belt, now that I thought about it. I pondered the oddness of that as I looped it around my waist, cinching the pants tight. Even then I had to use one of the last couple holes on the belt. 

Sure, Morley was a lot smaller than me, that wasn’t news, but this left me feeling like I’d put on a bit of extra weight in the middle. And here I was, thinking I’d been doing an alright job getting myself in shape. Guess it was back to torturing myself at the crack of dawn. Once again I cursed Morley and his unnatural enthusiasm for exercise.

“Alright.” I said, once I felt I could manage walking without the circus tents I was wearing slipping right off me. “Let’s go.” Morley took lead down the narrow staircase that connected his office and room to the main floor of the Joy House. It felt a lot more difficult to navigate than I remembered, probably because I’d never had to contend with so much loose fabric billowing around my legs before. I don’t know how some women did it, walking around all the time in those long flowing skirts. 

Morley had gotten ahead of me enough that I reached the bottom of the stairs alone. I got there without falling and breaking my neck, but it was a close thing. 

The public part of the Joy House was empty this early in the morning, and wouldn’t see its first customers for a few hours yet. That suited me just fine. I still had to walk the distance home, and I was sure I’d get more than enough stares to make up for the lack of curious onlookers here. 

I expected to see Morley by the door, probably waiting impatiently for me to hurry up so we could get this over with. But lo and behold, Morley was missing from where he should have been. I found him standing by the bar, head cocked as he stared at something on the floor behind it that I couldn’t see. I got to flapping my clown shoes so I could have a look for myself.

An unconscious bad guy, trussed up with a handy little note explaining everything would have been nice. Instead we got Puddle, sprawled on his back and snoring softly without a care in the world. He had one arm wrapped around the pony keg he kept behind the bar, cradling it against his side like it was the most precious cargo in the world. I had no doubt that it was empty or close to it. 

I chuckled, “Looks like at least somebody around here had a good night.” Morley wasn’t as amused. He hopped the bar with no trouble and punted the keg out of Puddle’s grip with a precise kick to its middle. It went flying and bounced hollowly out of sight. Puddle startled awake at the sound, rubbing a hand over his face with a hungover groan. Morley was unsympathetic to his plight.

“Why are you sleeping behind my bar, Puddle?” Morley stared him down. I assumed that this wasn’t a common occurrence. For a minute Puddle didn’t act like he’d heard the question. Then he lifted his head to squint at Morley like he was having trouble focusing on him.

“What?” Eloquent as ever, that Puddle. Morley sighed, repeated the question, and Puddle cradled the side of his head while he thought. It took him another couple minutes to come up with an answer.

“I dunno.” His inability to recollect didn’t seem to bother him, but Morley and I shared a look. Was Puddle suffering the usual effects of getting blackout drunk, or had someone messed with his memory like they had ours? I decided that it was definitely better that it had been Morley I’d woken up with. The idea of being that close to a naked Puddle turned my stomach. If Morley was exploring a similar line of thought, it didn’t show on his face.

“Did anyone come in last night?” he asked. “Probably late?” Puddle thought real hard again, with similar results.

“I dunno, boss.” Puddle looked over at me, finally having noticed my presence. He squinted at me. “What the hell you wearin’?” He didn’t seem to notice the fact that it was identical to his own clothes, though that could be because it wasn’t meant for someone with as little girth as me. 

“Didn’t you know? The drowned cat look is in right now. Your boss better catch up.” 

“What?” My sarcasm flew right over his head. Morley cut in before our two man circus could go any further.

“Go get yourself cleaned up, you reek.” I had to agree. My nose wasn’t anywhere near as good as Morley’s and I could smell the alcohol on Puddle from here. His new clientele probably wouldn’t appreciate it any more than I did. 

Puddle mumbled something that sounded like agreement. He started making his way to his feet as Morley made for the door, and I gave him a jaunty little wave before following. He didn’t appreciate the gesture, glaring at my back in confusion while I followed Morley out into the morning light. 


	2. Chapter 2

The heat of the day hadn’t set in yet, lending a cool, crisp quality to the breeze. The last of the ratmen were finishing up their nightwork, and we saw them hurrying to be done before the rest of the world finished waking up. The human’s rights activists had only gotten worse in the last couple months, and any ratmen out and about during the day made an easy target. I had no love for ratmen myself, but even I thought those nut jobs took it too far.

We didn’t see many people besides ratmen until we were out of the Safety Zone. Even then it wasn’t much of a crowd, mostly laborers on their way to a job, dwarves who were so naturally industrious that they couldn’t sleep past sunrise, and old timers who’d been waking up this early for so long that they didn’t know how to stop. I always thought they must be doing it to spite all of us who knew better and refused to fall in line. 

A few streets away from my neighborhood a racket broke out around the next corner. Morley and I were already walking to one side of the street, but we both pressed up tight to the brick of the nearest building as a stampede came racing towards us. Nearly twenty horses pounded down the street, a few of them whinnying gleefully as they passed. I nearly had heart palpitations as a few pranced too close for comfort. 

They were led by a massive black beast, almost as tall at the shoulder as I was. It’s hooves alone were probably as big as my head, not that you could see much of them with all the shaggy hair that covered its legs from the knee down. Its eerie blue eyes met mine as it passed, and I felt a shiver go down my spine. Then it was gone, leading the rest of its brethren around the next corner. Good riddance, I say. Their entire tribe has it out for me, and now there’s a whole pack of them loose this close to my house? An ill omen to be sure. 

An out of breath stable hand came huffing and puffing around the corner while everyone was still gawking at what had just happened. I hadn’t even known there was a stable nearby. I wouldn’t have moved in if I had. An elderly gnome who’d nearly gotten himself trampled shook his cane at the place the herd had last been seen, cursing up a storm. He got pretty creative. The stablehand took it all in with an exhausted expression before trudging on, until he too passed out of sight the way the horses had gone.

“You don’t see that everyday,” Morley said.

“Nope,” I agreed. I don’t think my sanity would be able to take it if it was a common occurrence. The look of the monster leading them was still getting to me. I was convinced it was going to decide it couldn’t pass up the opportunity to trample me and would come back around for another go at it. Morley didn’t share my aversion to horses, in fact he was one of the people who looked at me funny when I brought it up, but I could tell he’d also gotten a weird feeling about that black horse. We both picked up the pace without any discussion. 

The traffic on Macunado street was just starting to pick up when we got there. I drew a number of curious looks from passers-by thanks to my getup, but stare was all they did. Morley strode along behind me like he hadn’t a care in the world. It was a good thing I was the one drawing all the attention, because there were a couple of human’s rights jokers camped out on the sidewalk a few doors down from mine, attempting to pass out literature. I was gratified to see they weren’t getting many takers.

Without thinking much about it, I reached for the keys in my pocket once I’d stepped up onto my stoop. They weren’t there of course, probably still in the pocket of my pants wherever my clothes had gotten off to. I settled for pounding on the door and shouting for Dean. That drew some more attention, but only for as long as it took for people to recognize me and dismiss it as the all too common occurrence that it was. 

Mrs. Cardonlos lurked on her front step, eyeing my new look with a scowl. I plastered my sunniest smile on my face and gave her a jaunty wave. Even Morley joined in with a grin that could make a stone swoon. Mrs. Cardonlos had to have been at least a little dead inside, because her foul expression didn’t even twitch. She eyed us one last time before she turned and went back inside, just as Dean came to the door and started unlocking it. It wouldn’t have done much good even if I’d had my key, what with all the bolts and chains Dean had taken it upon himself to add to my door. I’d had a talk with him about it before, but it looked like I would need to refresh his memory.

“Mr. Garrett?” Dean looked at me wide eyed, like he wasn’t sure what to make of me. He only broke out the “Mr. Garrett” when he was either truly shocked or was trying to get on my good side. It must have been shock because he didn’t even get a sour look over Morley’s presence, if he’d even noticed Morley at all. 

“Dean, what’s the point of having a fancy lock and key, if every time I’m out you chain the door up tighter than the Bledsoe’s crazy house?” I didn’t mention that I didn’t have the key on me, and Morley didn’t seem inclined to tattle. Dean flapped his mouth soundlessly a few times as I pushed past him and into the house.

“I thought you were upstairs, sleeping,” Dean protested. A moment later he was over his surprise at my being awake and outside enough to take in my appearance. “What’s all this?” He wrinkled his nose when he finally noticed Morley, only because he’d followed me in, but didn’t comment as he did the security on the front door back up behind us.

“Oh, you know, just felt like switching it up today. What’s for breakfast? I’m starved.” I waved vaguely back at Morley to indicate he should do whatever while I climbed the stairs, intent on getting back into my own clothes. Dean sputtered a little at my brush off. I could just barely hear him grumbling something to himself as he retreated to the kitchen. Mr. Big had yet to start up his usual racket in response to our entrance, and I made a note to myself to check in on him before seeing the Dead Man. 

Speaking of. “Hey, Chuckles. You awake?” No response, from either the Parrot or the Dead Man. I was only talking to my empty bedroom. I frowned and grabbed the first clothes I saw, shedding what Morley had given me and leaving it in a pile that I then kicked aside. I went to shove my feet into a pair of shoes that actually fit, then stopped and stared. My usual everyday shoes were right where they were supposed to be, rather than off who knows where. 

On impulse I patted my pants pocket and pulled out what I found there. My keys. Some more searching found the other odds and ends that I carried around when I was on a case, everything accounted for and right where it should be. This day was getting weirder by the minute. I hoped the Dead Man hadn’t picked now of all times to take a nap. 

I went back downstairs, nearly tripping off the last step in my distraction. Some heavenly smells were coming from the direction of the kitchen and it took all my willpower to resist their pull for a few minutes more. My stomach protested mightily, but I persevered. 

The Parrot wasn’t in the front room. His perch was empty, a bowl of birdseed that Dean must have put out for him untouched. I peeked into the Dead Man’s room, didn’t find him there either. Four hundred pounds of ugly looked back at me from the Dead Man’s chair. It looked like the bugs might have started getting at him again. I’d have to get in here and do something about it since Dean was doing his damnedest to avoid that particular chore.

“Wake up, rent’s due.” Again there was no response. I couldn’t decide if he was really asleep or if he was just ignoring me. He was even more allergic to work than I was so it’s wasn’t impossible. I gave up after a couple minutes of waiting, letting my nose guide me to the other end of the house.

Dean must have already had breakfast started before we showed up. There was no other way even he could have put all this together otherwise. Morley was working through a plate of what offerings he’d found suitable, politely keeping his opinions about what meat was on display to himself. I loaded a plate of my own down with a little bit of everything and got to work putting it all away. All of a sudden I was feeling ravenous, like the last time I’d eaten had been days ago. For all I knew, maybe it had. There was no way of knowing with my missing time. 

I took a break from inhaling my food to drain half my mug of tea. “Where’s the bird?” I asked when my mouth was free again.

“His Nibs asked me to let him out earlier.” Well that answered my next question. I went back to eating. No sense wasting perfectly good food, especially not when it was as fine as Dean’s cooking. I polished off my plate at about the same time Morley got done, drained the rest of my tea and leapt to my feet, newly energized. There was a mystery afoot, and I was going to light a fire under a certain freeloading Loghyr until he decided to play nice.

I wasted no time in taking the Dead Man’s room to task. I talked at him as I tidied, trying to entice him into responding by dropping little hints of the mystery on my hands. Nothing too particular, since Dean was watching my antics from the doorway. Soon he left to deal with the remains of breakfast and Morley took his place. I didn’t pay my audience much mind as worked, and once I ran out of cleaning to do I really got into it.

There were thinly veiled threats. Then there were blatant threats. I worked through every tactic in my arsenal for dealing with dead Loghyrs who refused to pull their own considerable weight. By the end of it I’d made no progress except for a damn near spotless room and a sore throat from all my attempts at cajoling a response from the Dead Man. At some point Morley had wandered off to lands unknown, but I was pretty sure he was still somewhere in the house. I hadn’t heard the chain on the front door rattle. 

I slunk out of the Dead Man’s room in defeat, my mood the worst it had been all morning. I stormed into the kitchen, where Morley had his feet propped up on the kitchen table as he sipped a mug of tea and read a book I was sure had come from my office. Dean looked like he’d sucked all the juice out of a lemon, but oddly enough he wasn’t taking Morley to task for dirtying up his kitchen table. Clearly there was something I’d missed while I was on my campaign against the immovable object that was a stubborn Loghyr. 

“I thought you said the Dead Man sent the Parrot out?” I accused. My tone didn’t improve Dean’s mood in the slightest.

“He did.” 

“Then why is he in there doing his best impression of a regular old stiff?” I was annoyed. Dean was annoyed. Morley might have been annoyed by our snippy back and forth interrupting his reading. He took another sip of tea and turned a page rather than involve himself. 

“Wow! Look at those hooters!” drifted from the direction of the front door. That brought the brewing argument to a grinding halt. All of us looked that way, as if we could see through solid brick and wood. 

“So you are just faking,” I complained, headed for the door. I had half a mind to leave the Goddamn Parrot out there, but he’d just keep squawking if I did. At least he might quiet down a little if I got him inside and into the front room. “Whatever you’re sulking about, you can cut it out,” I said to the Dead Man, “I need you to pull your weight around here for once.” 

I went through the arduous process of unlatching the door as I told him just what I thought about these little stunts of his. There was still no answer, but I was on a roll, too busy to take note of that. I didn’t look through the peephole to check what might be out there besides the Parrot either.

I swung the door open without any hesitation and my running commentary came to an abrupt halt a second later mid-word. 

There in the street, not two feet from my front step, was the enormous beast of a horse me and Morley had seen on our way here. It had been snuffling at something in the gutter, but upon hearing me open the door it had lifted its head to stare at me with one of those awful blue eyes. I was frozen, just waiting for it to reach out and try to take a bite out of me. It just blinked at me though, one ear swiveling to listen to the human’s rights activists hawking their philosophy. A flick of its tail took a circling fly out of the air with pinpoint precision. 

And, of course, the Goddamn Parrot was perched on the behemoths back. This was it, that party buzzard was dead to me. This was the last straw, happily cavorting with a horse, much less one that had staged a mass jailbreak of its fellows. 

_ That is not a normal horse, Garrett. _

I jumped high enough I damn near hit my head on the lintel. The horse didn’t react. The G.D.P. cackled like an old crone. I was going to wring his neck, one of these days, when Morley and Spud weren’t paying attention.

“He speaks.” I considered shutting the door on this situation and leaving the Parrot to his own devices. “Finally tired of giving me the silent treatment? What did I do to piss you off, anyway?”

_ It was nothing so juvenile. I was expending a great amount of concentration, and there was no time for me to indulge your theatrics.  _

“Oh really? And what needed so much of your brainpower, exactly?” The monster horse had gone back to examining the ground, letting out soft snorts of breath. One of the neighborhood kids had gotten brave enough to approach.

“Can I pet your horse Mr. Garrett?” The words “your horse” are what stuck out in my mind and I suppressed a shiver.

I said, “It’s not my horse.” The kid apparently took that as tacit permission and ran up to it in excitement. I realized a second too late that they were approaching it from the wrong direction. One kick from that thing would be enough to do an ogre in. I didn’t want to think about what it would do to a scrawny human kid. 

I only made it down one step before the kid was within kicking distance. Time seemed to slow down as they curiously sunk their fingers into the shaggy hair around that monsters lower legs. I waited for the inevitable, my heart already sinking into my stomach. 

The horse didn’t bat an eye. It shifted its weight from one leg to the other and back, and the kid shifted their attention to petting the sleek, shiny hair on its side. Before I knew it the rest of the neighbor kids were swarming, a handful of them clustering around the horses head to pet its face and mane. 

What?

As the adrenaline rush that had pushed me closer to the beast than I’d ever wanted to be faded, I realized Morley was there too. He’d made it a step further than me, but still hadn’t gotten close enough that he would have been able to intervene. It was lucky that it hadn’t been necessary. 

_ Be cautious, Garrett. That is not a normal horse. _

I muttered, “You said that already. Seems like you’re stating the obvious here.” Morley shot me a look. The Dead Man must not have included him in the conversation. “You want to explain?” I went back up a step so I could lean in the doorway and still keep an eye on things. 

_ I realized earlier this morning that you were not where you should be. I had not noticed you leave, and after some thought I became aware that I could not remember you returning to the house the previous evening. In fact, my thinking as a whole has felt disordered all morning. _

That wasn’t a good sign. It sounded to me like whatever had been done to me and Morley, some version of it had been visited upon the Dead Man too, though with a slightly different effect. The Dead Man pulled at my line of thought like a cat pouncing on a loose string. Before I could stop him he’d pulled the events at Morley’s to the front of my mind. 

_ I see. _

“Do you now.” I cleared my throat, sank a little further into the shadow of the doorway. The last thing I needed was anyone seeing the effect that vividly reliving my wake up call had on me.

_ I do not know if I will be able to do much to restore yours and Mr. Dotes’ memories if I have been similarly affected, as it seems is likely to be the case. I may be able to assist your own abilities to recall them, however.  _

I perked up at that. “What?” The Dead Man heaved a mental sigh, a tall order since he didn’t actually breath anymore. 

_ Such magic as I suspect has been used is rarely powerful enough to actually remove memories wholecloth. It is a much simpler task to mask or suppress them, though that is not to say recovering your lost time will be a simple matter. There is still powerful magic at work on us all. But, I believe I will be able to assist your minds in starting down the correct path, so to speak.  _

“In that case, what are we waiting for?” A child squealed in delight as the horse lifted its head, taking the kid who had their arms wrapped around its snout with it. It seemed to pause in thought, the kid’s feet dangling a foot off the ground, before lowering its head again to set them back down. Once it was free of its passenger, it looked over to eye me again. The intelligence I could see there in its gaze was unsettling. “What about that thing?” 

A few groups of more industrious children were working together to add braids to the horses impractically long mane and tail. They complained and tried to push its head back to where it had been before, but it reacted to the attempt no more than a mammoth would to a gnat.

_ It is clearly intelligent, but its thoughts are opaque to me. It came here of its own volition for some purpose, and I do not foresee it leaving before it achieves it. I will enlist Dean to assist me in monitoring it while we are busy. If you would come see me, we can begin. I have the suspicion that the sooner we uncover your memories, the sooner we will have answers about our visitor. _

I don’t know how much of that the Dead Man sent to Morley too, but he got up and followed me inside without me having to say a word. The horse watched us go until a child who had left returned with an apple that they offered to it. The crowd of kids tittered as it delicately took the apple and bit it neatly in half with one small bite.

Dean was waiting just past the foyer. He leaned past us far enough to see out the door, taking in the spectacle that had camped out just past our front step. 

“What is it?” I knew from experience that the Dead Man could be annoyingly sparse on details sometimes.

“It’s a horse, Dean,” I said darkly. “Nothing good ever came of horses. Make sure it doesn’t try to eat a kid.” Horses were just one step removed from unicorns after all. At least in my book. Morley and Dean exchanged long-suffering looks with one another after I made my pronouncement. Wouldn’t that figure. The thing to get Dean to look past his problem with Morley was making light of my completely rational reservations about the whole equine tribe. 

_ Your suspicions may be well founded in this instance. We shall see.  _

Implying that usually they weren’t. The Dead Man wasn’t as slick as he seemed to think. 

Into the Dead Man’s room we went. Morley made himself comfortable leaning on the wall by the door while I sat myself down in the one unoccupied chair I kept there for myself. I’d lit a couple lamps in here to facilitate my cleaning and haranguing earlier and they gave me a good look at the Dead Man’s brand of ugly. Truly a face only a mother could love. Or maybe not. The Dead Man is the only Loghyr I've ever seen, and he’d been dead for a few hundred years by the time I’d met him. Maybe he’d been regular-looking by Loghyr standards.

“So how does this work?” Morley eyed the Dead Man, arms crossed over his chest. Not even Dean was too comfortable with the Dead Man’s preferred way of communicating. I was numb to him talking in my head after putting up with it for so long, but it had been a big adjustment at first. Guys in Morley’s line of work always had things they wanted to stay secret, which didn’t mix so well with the Dead Man’s talent for digging around in people’s heads. The fact that he was willing to let him go digging around in there now told me just how much he wanted that lost time back.

_ I will attempt to find the block within your mind, if the memories you are missing are indeed merely hidden beyond your reach, as I suspect they are. Once found, it will hopefully be a simple enough task to remove it.  _

He’d gotten more confident in his own abilities since earlier. Or maybe it was just for Morley’s benefit. He probably thought Morley would be less willing to cooperate if he didn’t blow his own horn a little. 

_ If you are both ready, I believe it would be prudent to proceed as soon as possible. We still do not know to what end your memories were altered, and time may very well be of the essence.  _

“Alright, might as well start with me Old Bones. You’ve been in my head enough, it should be easier to find this block you keep mentioning.” 

_ If Mr. Dotes has no objections.  _

Morley shrugged a shoulder. “Go ahead.”

_ Then I will begin.  _

Just like he’d done earlier, the Dead Man pulled the events of this morning to the front of my mind. The difference now was that instead of reliving it at double speed from the moment I’d woken up, it zipped back in reverse. It started from now and worked its way back through my day so far, slowing every so often on some detail the Dead Man wanted a closer look at. 

The effect was close to nauseating. I was gripping the arms of my chair with white knuckles, and if I hadn’t already been sitting down I was sure my knees would have gone out from under me. The Dead Man got to when I’d first woken up and it all came to an abrupt stop. The almost dizzying effect of viewing my own memories in reverse was replaced by a building pressure behind my eyes. 

I hissed a quiet curse to myself and pushed the heels of my hands into my eyes, as if that would relieve some of the discomfort. The Dead Man must have found the block, and whatever he was trying to do made it feel like my teeth were going to vibrate right out of my skull. Then I gasped as all the discomfort vanished. I opened my eyes, found myself staring at my own knees from where I’d slumped forward in my seat.

“What the hell was that?” I croaked. My voice was weak and a little wobbly. I didn’t think I could stand right now if my life depended on it. I had to lean heavily on the armrests just to get myself upright again.

_ I had feared this would be the case. Whatever magic is blocking your memories, I am unable to remove it.  _

“So all that was for nothing?” I felt like someone had bounced my head off a particularly stubborn rock. The only things missing were the pain, the lump, and the ringing in my ears. 

_ Not so. Now I have a better understanding of what has been done, and as a result I know how we might rectify it.  _

“Wonderful,” I sulked. “So how do we fix this?” The effects of the Dead Man’s attempt were already starting to fade, but I wasn’t feeling very charitable. I’d just had to open my big mouth and volunteer to go first. 

_ If we cannot remove the block directly, we may be able to erode it. _

“What does that even mean? I thought you said we couldn’t remove it?”

_ As I said, it is outside my power to remove it directly. However, your own mind may be able to manage it, given the proper circumstances.  _

“Enough, just get to it already. I’ve already gotten enough of a headache thanks to you.” Another mental sigh. He was just full of vim and vigor today. 

_ If you retrace your steps from your last memory before the missing time, you may be able to bypass the block entirely. Imagine the block as a locked door – you cannot open it from the outside without the key, and you have no tools capable of forcing it open. If you were to approach it from the inside, on the other hand, opening the door would be as simple as turning the bolt and loosing the chain.  _

He had the tone that meant he thought I was being lazy with my thinking, an opinion he held often. The Dead Man was always trying to get me to reason things out for myself, like I shouldn’t expect him to contribute to keeping a roof over his lazy head. Doing all the heavy mental lifting was practically the only thing he was good for.

“See? Was that so hard?” I was cautious getting to my feet and I only let go of the chair once I was sure I wouldn’t just fall over.

_ You desperately need the mental exercise, Garrett, especially if you wish to uncover your memories from where they have been hidden. Almost as much as you are in need of the physical variety.  _

Ouch. That was a low blow. I glared at the Dead Man’s corpse, regretting that I hadn’t let the bugs and mice hang around a little longer to take some more bites out of him. 

“Just how literally do you mean ‘retracing’?” I could tell already I wasn’t going to like the answer.

_ As literally as possible. If you remember walking a particular path, do so again now. Any strong memory you recover should be replicated exactly if possible. If you cannot replicate it, then I suggest focusing on the more subtle sensory aspects and replicating those alone. A cold room, a comfortable chair, whatever details stick out to you most. Doing so should weaken the foundations of the block, and eventually cause it to crumble entirely. _

Morley was being awfully quiet. He hadn’t moved from his spot by the door, still leaning there with his arms crossed over his chest, though now he was frowning. He’d been a little too casual about waking up the way we had for my liking. I’d only been so calm myself because I’d thought Morley wouldn’t be. 

On some level I still half-expected that it hadn’t completely sunk in yet and he’d snap when it did. I knew it still felt a little unreal to me. I wanted to be sure I was well out of striking range if Morley did decide it was somehow my fault and had a mind to take it out on me. Not that I had any doubts he’d be able to catch me if I ran, or any doubt that he could kill me if he really put his mind to it. If Morley decided he wanted me dead, chances are I was going to end up that way.

“If we can’t remember anything, how are we supposed to retrace our steps?” 

_ I cannot remember for you, Garrett, or for Mr. Dotes. As I said, you must start with the last memory you have before your loss of time. Think, what was it? _

Easy for him to say. He has a whole extra brain in there to think with. Like patting your head and rubbing your stomach, but for complex thought. I glanced at Morley. “You want to give it a try first this time?” Morley looked between me and the Dead Man, his shoulders going tense.

“That won’t happen to me if I do, will it?” He meant the way the Dead Man had nearly made my head explode. I’d be cautious too right now if I were him.

_ You should be perfectly fine, Mr. Dotes. Garrett’s experience was a result of my attempts to remove the block by force. Recovering your memories yourself should come with no ill effects. _

“That’s two more ‘should’s than I’d like,” I muttered. I was ignored.

Morley nodded at the Dead Man’s reassurance. He focused on a blank spot on the wall, his eyes getting a far away look as he thought. After a minute he closed his eyes much like he’d done earlier to focus on remembering. 

_ I suggest you try to remember as well, Garrett. It would not be wise to waste any more time than we already have. _

I didn’t much feel like doing any deep thinking but I didn’t bother arguing. I started pacing in the space between the Dead Man’s chair and my own, hand on my chin and eyes on the floor. The first thing that came to mind when I tried to remember anything was waking up in bed this morning. That wasn’t the furthest back it should have gone though, there had to be something from before somebody had messed with my head. I thought harder, there was almost – 

Nothing. 

I sighed, frustrated. Half my job was remembering things, why the hell was this so hard? I rested an elbow on the back my seat and leaned there, looked over at Morley again. He’d opened his eyes and was still frowning. Guess he’d had just as much luck finding someplace to start as me. 

“No joy, Chuckles. What now?” The Dead Man imparted the suggestion of a mental shrug. 

_ Go about your usual routine. If a particular action stirs your memory, pursue it. There is little else to be done now.  _

That sounded like the Dead Man when he was still working an idea over in his head. Hurry up and wait while he kept his cards close to his chest. 

“Great.” I pushed off the chair and left the Dead Man to his thoughts. I heard Morley fall into step behind me. “You going home then?” I stopped when I nearly ran into Dean. He’d been lurking by the front door peering out the peephole. Now that I was back he wandered off toward the kitchen without a word. I didn’t like how quiet Morley was being, it felt like a bad sign. Maybe I was just being paranoid after the morning we’d had.

“You heard him, there’s not anything else we can do right now.” He sounded casual about it. Too casual. I shifted a little closer to the door and blocked it, passing the movement off as just me going to look out the peephole myself.

“You remember something?” Damn. That monster was still out there. The G.D.P. was still on its back too, behaving suspiciously well. The Dead Man must be the reason for that. There was no way he’d have missed the chance to catcall anything even vaguely female passing him on the street. When I’d had enough of the view I leaned on the door and turned back to Morley. I could tell he wanted to say no, but he had stopped himself.

“Maybe. I’m not sure yet.” I had a suspicion about what he meant. I didn’t push. 

“Alright. I’ll tell you if I remember anything important,” I said. I unbolted the door and opened it to much the same situation as before. The horse was still standing there like it had nothing better to do than darken my door. It probably didn’t. I wondered where the hell its owner was and why they hadn’t come to drag it home. There was no way word hadn’t spread about it being here, and it wasn’t like there were a lot of horses like this in TunFaire. Not that I kept track of the foul beasts.

All but the most dedicated of the neighbor kids had wandered off when it became clear the horse wasn’t going to do anything more interesting than stand around being huge. The ones left were threading the tiny flowers from what plants had managed to grow around the cobblestones into the braids they’d done. The horse still didn’t seem to care. T.G.P. was too busy preening himself to bother with anyone. 

I grumbled, “I wonder if the glue factory does pickups.” At least I was sure there’d been no horses involved during my missing time. Horses weren’t ringing a single bell, except for the one that said to keep far away from them as often as possible. 

Morley huffed in amusement at my comment. He wouldn’t be laughing if that thing tried to run him down on his way home. He might laugh if I got saddled with responsibility for the horse because it was parked right in front of my house and wouldn’t leave. He edged down one side of the steps, giving it a wide berth as he got onto the street. He disappeared into the growing traffic of Macunado street without a backward glance. I caught sight of him one more time before he rounded a corner.


	3. Chapter 3

The neighbor kids were industrious, I’d give them that. They’d managed to get most of the tail into one big braid and its mane was littered with a variety of smaller ones. Someone had filled a rusty pot with handfuls of grass and the horse had its nose buried in it. The pot slid with a rough scrape as it tried to push its nose further into the corners. 

I got to work giving the horse the evil eye. I hoped to run it off without having to get any closer than this. As if it could feel the weight of my attention the horse lifted its head. It chewed a mouthful of grass as it stared back at me without an ounce of concern. 

“So what’s the deal with the horse?” I felt the Dead Man brush my mind, using my eyes to get a better look at the situation. He could use the Parrot to follow me around and to talk, but what he could see using the Parrot’s eyes was limited.

_ I am unsure. I believe the horse has some connection to our current predicament, but in what way is still unclear. Mr. Big was drawn to it earlier as I was searching for you, and he became more difficult to control once in close proximity to it. When you were attempting to get my attention earlier, I did not respond because I was monitoring its progress here. _

“You really think it has something to do with all this?” For all that it was a terrifying giant of a horse with eerie eyes it still just looked like… well, a horse. Full of malice and plotting ill will towards me as we spoke, sure, but just a horse. 

_ Yes. We should contain it someplace secure until we have more information. _

“Where the hell am I going to put a horse?” I demanded a little too loudly. A couple kids gave me weird looks for my outburst. I ignored them and kept trying to glare the horse into submission. It called my bluff with a derisive snort and flicked its tail.

_ Have you forgotten we know someone who specializes in such things? _

Oh. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Playmate was the obvious choice for any horse-related matters. He’d get along great with this beast, it was practically meant to be. It felt like it had been much longer than a couple of hours since I’d woken up. 

“And how do you expect me to get it there?” I really didn’t want to get too close to it. The fact that the neighborhood kids had gotten close without any trouble meant nothing. Every horse I’d ever met had it out for me specifically. Nobody else saw them for the crafty devils that they were except for me. Not that seeing them for what they were had ever done me much good when I was forced to interact with them.

_ It is a horse, Garrett. An unusual one, but a horse nonetheless. Tie a lead to it and walk. I’m sure you can manage that. _

Easy for him to say. He couldn’t drag his musty corpse anywhere even if he wanted to. I was the one stuck doing all of the heavy lifting in our partnership. I shook my head as I went inside. Sometimes I felt more like hired muscle than my own boss. I shook my head again. I had some rope on one of the shelves in the Dead Man’s room last I checked. 

The horse was still there when I got back outside. I’d hoped that the prospect of being tied up and led around might have been enough to get it to run off. I had no such luck. I tied the rope into something like a bridle and considered how to actually put it on. The horse was being docile now but I was sure it would get a lot more uncooperative once I started.

Standing around reluctant wouldn’t get me anywhere. The sooner I got that monster to Playmate’s, the sooner I’d be rid of it. I kept my approach slow, careful not to make any sudden moves. The horse just watched me, impassive. Did I mention those eyes were unsettling? 

A few steps brought me close enough to try getting the rope on it. I couldn’t help hesitating. I had a weird feeling now that I was closer. Not the usual apprehension I felt around horses either. I jumped a little when it bumped its nose into my hands. 

I almost expected it to try and bite me. Instead it just snuffled a few times, investigating first the rope and then my sleeve. While it was busy I slipped the rope over its head and secured it. There was no reaction to that other than another snort and a slow blink. I didn’t trust how easy this had been, it was probably just biding its time. It was planning something, I was sure of it.

The kids that were still here fixed me with disappointed faces. “Does she have to go already Mr. Garrett?” I didn’t correct them that ‘Mr. Garrett’ was my grandfather. When you were a kid anybody over nineteen was practically the same age, and that age was old. 

“‘Fraid so.” They crowded around the horse then, patting its sides and shoulders as they said their goodbyes. It dragged on long enough that I ended up shooing them off. The Parrot hadn’t made a peep the whole time. Sitting on the horses back put his head a good half a foot higher than mine. I didn’t appreciate having to look up to eye him. “You tagging along then?” 

_ I have other avenues to pursue while you attempt to recover your memories. If you would be so kind as to remove him for me. He is proving uncooperative at the moment. _

I could see that. T.G.P was preening a wing, unresponsive to what must have the Dead Man’s attempts to move him. I sure hoped leaving this horse with Playmate wouldn’t drag him into the thick of things. I didn’t have many other choices if I wanted to keep it somewhere I could easily find it later like the Dead Man insisted, but I didn’t want Playmate to get hurt just because he’d been nice enough to help me out. 

I reached up with the hand not holding the rope and swatted at T.G.P. He squawked and flapped his wings but didn’t budge otherwise. I nearly did get bitten now when he tried to catch my retreating hand with his beak. In a split second the horse whipped its head around and loosed a sharp scream at the Parrot, teeth bared and ears pinned back. It gave a full body shake that dislodged T.G.P.’s grip and sent him frantically flapping to get away. He flew up to perch on the roof, exercising his colorful vocabulary.

I’d jumped back a few steps with a startled curse of my own at the sudden show of aggression. I only got as far as my grip on the rope let me, maybe a foot. The horse tossed its head and stomped a few times. It ignored me completely and focused a glare on the Parrot. 

_ Interesting. _

“What?” My heart was pounding. I was ready for that thing to turn on me next. Whatever the Dead Man was talking about I was too focused on keeping myself ready to lunge out of the way to decipher it.

_ You’re sure this creature is not familiar in some way? _

“Pretty sure I’d remember this monster Chuckles.” 

_ Perhaps. I will keep you no longer. Take the horse to Playmate, he may be able to provide details as to its provenance. _

The horse gave one last aggravated huff as it finally settled. I edged a step closer, ready to run if it decided I made a good target. Nothing happened. I stepped sideways to get onto the street and gave the rope a light tug. The horse perked up at that. It started trotting forward and I had to jog to keep from being dragged along. “Woah! Slow down!” I pulled harshly on the rope without thinking. 

The horse skidded to a stop and turned its head to eye me. It gave me an annoyed snort and pawed the ground with one huge hoof. This thing was so damn big that I wasn’t so sure that I could keep up on foot now. I sure as hell wasn’t going to ride it, no way. Not after seeing it turn on the Parrot so quickly. I’d seen frightened horses bite back in the Cantard, I knew what kind of damage those teeth could do. 

I jumped forward when something snapped across my backside. I whirled around to see if I could spot the culprit. It took me a moment to realize it had been the horses tail, the braid making for a perfect whip. It tried to pull me forward with the rope when I turned back to glare at it. “You’re really pushing your luck, you know how many bags I could get out of you?” My threats were empty and we both knew it. At least until the Dead Man decided we didn’t need it anymore. 

_ Perhaps riding the horse would be the most expedient option?  _

“No way, not happening.” I hadn’t thought I was still close enough for the Dead Man’s thoughts to reach me. Anyway, he knew better than to ask that. The horse sounded like it was getting impatient with all the standing around. It grunted as it shifted in place, tugging on the rope and urging me forward.

_ If you are intent on getting your exercise in right now, so be it. You will not be able to keep up otherwise.  _

Damn it. I hated when he was right about something I didn’t want to do. Forcing me to weigh my dislike of exercise against my completely reasonable distrust of horses. And he was right, Playmate’s was far enough away that running to keep up with the horse for that distance wasn’t something I could manage. Not without plenty of rest stops. Even Morley would have difficulty running that far without stopping, and that was a guy who ran places just for fun.

I growled in frustration. The Dead Man was silent. The horse just watched me, expectant. Damn the both of them. When I found whoever had messed with my memory and put me in this situation I was gonna give them a piece of my mind. The horse nickered like it was laughing at me. 

“Fine. But you’d better not try any funny business.” I laid both hands on the horses back, waited for a response. It flicked its ears and faced forward. I pulled myself up onto its back with a grunt of effort, swung a leg over so I could sit up. I couldn’t say I had much experience riding without a saddle. 

The breadth of the horse beneath me brought to mind the two shape-shifting behemoths Cat and I had made our escape on, back during that whole debacle with the Shayir and Godoroth. That had barely been a month ago but it felt like a lifetime away. Remembering the way I’d been dragged into it without my consent made me paranoid that this was somehow related. I thought everybody in the Dream Quarter was done with me, but maybe there was someone who still had a chip on their shoulder. 

I was so busy thinking that I didn’t notice when the horse started moving. It was only after we passed through a busy marketplace and the chatter around us got louder that I realized it. I also saw now that we were wandering the wrong way. 

A light tug brought the horse to an obedient halt. Behind me a merchant berated me for stopping so suddenly. I ignored him and leaned forward to tie the end of the rope to the other side of the makeshift bridle. Now I actually had a way to steer.

“Garrett? Is that you up there?” I looked over to find Saucerhead Tharpe wading through the crowd to reach me. It was a novelty to be so much taller than him, looking down at him from this high up. 

“It’s me alright.” Saucerhead made it to the lull in the crowd that had formed around me and the horse, like no one wanted to get too close. I didn’t blame them. Saucerhead looked us both over, taking in the braided and flower adorned mane and tail and the loose bridle and reigns I’d fashioned. 

“I thought you didn’t like horses?”

“I don’t. This thing showed up at my house and wouldn’t leave. I’m taking it to Playmate’s.” Saucerhead nodded in understanding and a thought occurred to me. “You ever seen it before?” Saucerhead took a closer look.

“Don’t think so. I bet I would too, it sure stands out.” I’d thought as much. I dug around in my pocket, pulled out a couple coppers.

“Any chance you could do some asking around for me?” Saucerhead was more than happy to take my money.

“Sure thing, Garrett. I’ll see what I can find.” He trotted back into the crowd. I was struck by a sudden sense of déjà vu. 

“Hey, hold on!” Too late. Between the noise of the crowd and the distance Saucerhead had already covered he couldn’t hear me. “Damn.” I’d just have to find him again later. After I’d gotten rid of this horse. Hopefully Playmate would be as taken with it as I thought he’d be. 

I nudged the beast with my heels and turned it in the right direction. The horse was so big that even ambling along without a care we made good time. Playmate’s came into sight sooner than it ever had. I was overjoyed to be able to get my feet back on solid ground. 

The horse blew hot breath on the back of my head as I led it inside, tousling my hair. “Hey, I said no funny business.” Playmate looked up from where he’d been shoveling fresh hay as I rounded the corner. His face lit up with a grin when he saw me.

“Garrett! How are you?” His gaze shifted up as the horse came in after me, then up some more. The pleased expression he’d had turned to awe as he took in the horse. “My god, Garrett, where did you find this one? She’s beautiful!” He stuck his pitchfork in the pile of hay so he could come get a closer look. I knew it, perfect for each other. 

“I’ve been better. This thing showed up at my house and wouldn’t leave. I was hoping you might know where it came from.” Playmate petted over the top of its snout, drawing forth a pleased snuffle.

“She’s an old Karentine breed, a Dail. The Imperial family used to be the only ones allowed to keep them. There aren’t many left, when the Imperial’s were forced out they managed to take most of their Dails with them. I haven’t seen one in years, and even then it wasn’t one like this!” The horse preened under Playmate’s attention, pushing its head into his hand and letting itself be led as he leaned to either side for a better look at the rest of it. 

“If they’re so rare, how did one end up here in TunFaire?” This wasn’t making any sense. Missing memories, waking up with Morley, a horse so rare it had Playmate enraptured? How did it all fit together?

“I’d like the answer to that too.” Playmate cooed something softly to it as he took off the rope bridle. He ran some of the braids in its mane through his fingers and grinned at me. “Did you do this?” 

“No, the kids in my neighborhood. They did that while I was trying to figure out what to do with it.” I took the rope back and started unknotting it. “So you don’t have any ideas where it could have come from?”

“I’m afraid not,” he said. “I wish I could be more help.”

“Well,” I started, “I was actually hoping you might be able to keep an eye on it for me. The Dead Man thinks it might be important, later.” Playmate looked curious. I explained about the memory loss but didn’t mention the bit about waking up next to Morley. The less I had to think about that the better, every time I did the image of Morley’s bare back as he dressed popped into my head. It was an image that was getting more and more difficult to get rid of. 

“Of course, I’d be happy to keep her here.” That was a relief. What had I done to deserve as good a friend as Playmate? He might be the best person I knew. I thanked him and offered to buy him a drink as soon as I got this all sorted out. Not an offer to make lightly, since Playmate was big enough that he could easily eat me out of house and home if given the opportunity. 

As I walked out of Playmate’s stable I tried to dig deeper into the déjà vu I’d felt with Saucerhead. Trying to conjure up a memory that didn’t want to be conjured was an exercise in futility I soon learned. All it left me with was a worse mood and not much else. My options were either try to track down Saucerhead again or head back home to consult with the Dead Man. It was a more difficult decision than you might think.

I ended up wandering as I thought. After some careful mental footwork I had managed to remember what was probably the last thing to happen before everything kicked off. It wasn’t a very helpful memory, just me waking up at home sometime around noon and helping myself to the lunch Dean had made. I wasn’t sure if it had been five days ago or sometime the week before, but it was a start. 

I focused in on the details I could remember. There’d been no urgency to my wakening. No Dead Man prodding me to get up and at ‘em for either a case or to go gather up some news about Glory Mooncalled. Dean hadn’t been generous with the meal like he would’ve if I was working a case. He loves to try and give me the positive reinforcement to try and get me to work more often. I sure wasn’t going to complain about getting good food. 

It felt like something had happened after I’d finished eating. Had I gone to my office for something? I hadn’t been in there yet today. Maybe bouncing ideas off Eleanor would help jog my memory. She was a better listener than Dean or the Dead Man. Less likely to condescend or scold me for not working more. I’d go sit at my desk after I got home, do some serious thinking.

A subtle feeling from the crowd around me changed. I blinked and took a look around. Then I froze up. 

How the hell had I ended up in the Dream Quarter?

Ever since being thrown into the middle of a godly tug-of-war I’d avoided this part of TunFaire. Not that it would do anything to actually keep the gods from deciding to muck around in my life if they really wanted to. It just made me feel better. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say. 

I hadn’t heard anything since that whole mess got wrapped up more than a month ago, not from a member of one of the many pantheons or from one of the temples. But then I’d spent the first thirty years of my life with no interference from any higher power too. 

Maybe they’d drag me into some new drama in thirty more years when I was a ripe old sixty. 

None of them had shown up to strike me down with a bolt of lightning. Or something equally dramatic. Nobody was paying me much mind at all so far as I could tell. I wondered again why I’d ended up here. It was one of the last places I’d want to be. My subconscious was clearly trying to say something. I wish I knew what. 

Well if wandering around is what had gotten me here, maybe some more wandering would get me a little further. I didn’t know if I wanted there to be a lead to my situation here or not. If there was one it meant I was very likely in for a bad time.

I tried to listen to my intuition and let it lead me. But doing that was a lot harder when you were trying to do it consciously. The more I tried to focus the more it slipped away. People around me stared as I grumbled lowly in my frustration and walked faster to get away from the probably crazy guy. 

This wasn’t getting me anywhere. I didn’t think the Dream Quarter had guards outside of what the temples provided for themselves. If there were guards I was sure someone would call them and sic them on me for causing public unrest. Or something equally ridiculous.

My feet had brought me here for a reason. I just had to figure out what that reason was. Come on Garrett, think. I tried meandering and just taking in the sights. This felt like a step in the right direction. Figuratively and I hoped literally too. 

My feet took me down towards where the old Godoroth and Shayir temples had been, so close to the river they’d nearly been falling in. Their spots were filled by a couple of pitiful little shacks for cults I’d never heard of. 

Not that being a dinky little no-name religion meant their gods were any less real. I could have gone on just fine not knowing some of the things I’d learned. I preferred my position of not caring enough to know, especially now that I’d seen the other side.

Being down here just reminded me of No Neck. I turned back up the street.

I reached the other end of the Dream Quarter where the modest chapels gave way to sprawling compounds. The Church and the Orthodoxy sat pretty in the top spots, looking down over the rest of the street from on high. 

I didn’t think my feet had been taking me here. I wasn’t feeling any kind of pull toward the places this far up. I considered whether some kind of diversionary measure had been thrown in with the memory spell. It would make sense if the point had been to keep me and Morley from something specific. 

Maybe I needed to enlist an actual magic expert. I wasn’t crazy about that prospect.

I wandered back to where I started, where I first noticed that I was in the Dream Quarter. I figured whatever it was that I was looking for, it was probably here in the center section of the street. 

The temples here weren’t towering giants like the Church and its closest neighbors. Most boasted respectable congregations, their buildings well maintained if a bit worn in places. The religions here were all roughly the same size, seeing both local believers and those that were only in TunFaire for a short time, like sailors and traveling merchants. 

All the temples even had a similar look here. All of them except for one, that is. One temple was a good deal smaller than the rest, and it had noticeably less traffic going in and out of it. In fact, I didn’t think I saw anyone going into or coming out of the big double doors that took up most of the temple’s street facing wall. 

Something in me said to investigate. With no other ideas readily available, I didn’t see much other choice. 

There were so many people coming and going from so many different churches that I was able to blend right in. Nobody paid me any attention even after I’d made a third, a fourth, even a fifth pass. It took me as many tries as it did to decide if this was the right place simply because it was so small. The feeling I was following was so nebulous that I didn’t recognize the tiny change in it when I got close the first few times. 

This place looked like it should be struggling to stay on the street at all. Not up here surrounded by the hustle and bustle at the heart of things. Despite its size it was just as nice as the temples around it, maybe even a little better maintained. If its priests were doing that well for themselves I’d have thought they would spring for someplace bigger. 

I’d lingered in front of the place for too long. A possibly-reformed bruno turned guard at the temple next door was giving me the stink eye. I made the impulsive and probably stupid decision to head inside the oddly small temple. The bruno liked that even less than he liked me standing around gawking. He scowled mightily at me as I went inside.

I couldn’t resist giving him a jaunty wave that only managed to infuriate him further. It was impressive how red his face got in the short time it took me to walk out of sight.

A pair of oversized doors stood on the wall facing the street. They were topped with a circular window as tall as I was that depicted either one of the gods they worshipped here or some kind of symbol in stained glass. It was a little too abstract for me to figure out which. The window by itself had to have cost a small fortune. I’m no expert and I knew the going price for a simple pane of glass half that size wasn’t cheap. Even if it was a donation from a wealthy patron that said something about the kind of influence they must have. How had I never heard of whatever this religion was, not even in passing?

The doors weren’t locked when I tried them. That would have been embarrassing, having that guard see me walk face-first into solid wood because I thought it would just open. Inside was a tiny chapel without even a podium for conducting a service. The only things in the room were an altar with the usual candles and idol and simple pews enough for maybe twenty people at a time. Not the kind of place I expected from the location and that window. 

There wasn’t anybody else around that I could see. With a place this small I wouldn’t be surprised if there were only one or two people in here at a time. There was a door to the right of the altar that I assumed led to storage and a living space for whatever priests stayed here. 

The familiar feeling I’d had outside only got stronger now that I was in here. I had to have come here at some point during the week I was missing. Now I just needed to figure out why. I kept an ear out for movement from that back door as I approached the altar. I gave the items spread across it a careful look just in case one of them might jog my memory. 

The candles were pretty unremarkable. They would’ve been at home on any of the hundreds of other altars in the Dream Quarter. Dean might even have a few hidden away in a cupboard in case the lamps ran out of oil. There were a few small items spread over the altar in front of the idol at the very back. 

A tiny glass sculpture of a crow, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. It was detailed like nothing I’d ever seen, couldn’t have been anything less than the work of a master craftsman. Clearly money was no object to these people. That meant the diminutive size of this temple compared to those around it was a deliberate choice rather than a limitation. 

The crow was the thing that stood out most of the offerings. There were some black polished stones that still felt a little like glass but were different in some way I couldn’t quite pin down. I got a weird shiver up my spine when I touched one. I practically dropped it as I checked to make sure I hadn’t been snuck up on. A part of me was convinced I had been, even when I saw that nobody was there. Nothing else caught my eye and I only gave it all a cursory glance before checking out the idol itself. 

I couldn’t tell what the idol was made of. After the weirdness with the stones I was hesitant to pick it up, but it looked like it had some heft to it. My eyes said bone or petrified wood, but my brain insisted on some kind of stone. The shape it was carved into was just that – a shape. It was definitely a person in spite of the fact that there were no distinguishing features. I couldn’t even tell if this god was supposed to be male or female. It stood upright with one arm outstretched above its head, the other pulled close as if it was cradling something to its chest. If there was supposed to be something there it wasn’t anymore.

“Has Avia called to you, my child?” I startled badly. There may have been a very surprised utterance of language not suited for a chapel. I wasn’t devout to the religion I’d been raised with, didn’t see much I liked about the Dream Quarter as a whole, but I did want to avoid ruining my chances of getting some questions answered because I’d offended one of the likely few temple priests.

The guy who’d spoken was a thin older man without a hair on his head. His eyebrows were doing their damndest to pick up the slack. He didn’t look upset that I was here so I guess this was technically a public space. He wore the generic kind of robe you expected from holy men of any denomination.

“I guess. I’ve never heard of an ‘Avia’ before though. Who are they?” I must have been right with my guess earlier. This guy looked too excited about getting to explain his god and religion for there to be too many regular visitors. I resigned myself to getting the whole spiel. Once you let these priest types get going it could take them a while to wind down.

“Avia is the protector of all things, the one true god.” Ah, so one of those kinds. There weren’t as many religions claiming theirs was the one true god as there were those with extensive pantheons. The biggest two were the Church and the Orthodoxy, though technically they shared the same god. Their differences came down to squabbles over policy and who got the biggest slice of the pie. Right now the Church was pulling ahead with that second one. 

All these expensive things just laying around for someone to steal or break made sense if you thought your god would protect you from everything. That is if you actually believed in what you were preaching. I got the impression this guy just might. 

I decided to play along. “Really? So all those other ones aren’t real?” The priest smiled indulgently, like I was a kid who just said the darndest things. 

“Oh, no, the deities of our neighbors are quite real. No, the difference lies in their origin. Avia is the one true god of our world.” I didn’t know how to respond to that. It was the closest I’d ever heard anyone come to describing the real situation accurately. I wish I still didn’t know what I did about the gods and goddesses of the Dream Quarter. Sometimes ignorance really was bliss.

“So what do they protect you from then? Thieves and murderers? Illness? The Guard?” That got a chuckle. Needless to say I was surprised. I’d added that last one only because I hadn’t been able to stop myself from making that particular dig, but I’d expected derision from somebody in the religion racket. Nice to know that somebody in TunFaire appreciated my sense of humor. 

He said, “Avia protects us all from something much greater than any of that.” I wondered what could be more pressing than some of the top causes of death for any citizen of TunFaire who didn’t live on the Hill. I didn’t have to prompt him for an answer to that because he kept going. “All of those things we mortals have ways of dealing with ourselves. We might not be very good at it sometimes, but we are capable of it with some effort. No, Avia protects us from the things we have no way of dealing with on our own. Creatures that would devour our world, and even the gods themselves, if given the chance.

I immediately thought of the tendrils of  _ something _ that I’d seen reaching through a hole in the world, grabbing members of the Shayir, the Godoroth, and some gods from other pantheons, and pulling them through. I remembered the huge eye I’d briefly seen looking through a similar hole a mile off the ground in the countryside, when Cat had spirited me away to relative safety. 

If this Avia was supposed to be the one dealing with things that had gods spooked, where were they back then? I was pretty sure dealing with somebody conspiring to rip a hole open for that nightmare fuel to come through would be right up their alley. 

“There’s things like that?” I didn’t have to fake the note of distress in my voice. Just thinking about those things gave me the chills. 

“Yes, and Avia protects us all from them.” Avia must have been good at faking it. I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of them a couple months ago, when those things they were supposed to defend against were trying to poke their way through. They must have done something pretty big way back when to still have a temple here in the middle of the Dream Quarter. Maybe quality of believers had just as much impact as quantity on a god’s power. These people certainly seemed dedicated.

“So we pay tribute and Avia keeps the creepy crawlies out?” That got the first frown I’d seen from him so far. 

“Avia does not require our worship. They do not discriminate between follower and non-believer. All are protected, regardless of their belief.” Huh?

“Huh?” Sharp, Garrett. Really making a good impression. But then it could be useful for this guy to think I was a bit of an idiot. He got a sympathetic look, like he’d run into this stumbling block when explaining his religion to people who wandered in off the street before.

“You’re confused as to why we worship Avia, if our protection is guaranteed either way?” 

“Well, yeah.” He’d hit the nail on the head. The idea that somebody would dedicate any of their time to a religion when they didn’t get anything out of it ran counter to everything I thought I knew about the Dream Quarter. The priest smiled knowingly.

“As I said, Avia doesn’t require our worship. Most of the world doesn’t even know of their existence, much less of the duty they uphold. We pay tribute to Avia here because we believe they deserve it, for all that they do for our world.” It was worse than I thought. These people weren’t in it for anything, they were much more dangerous than that. They were  _ true believers. _

I really wanted to know why this place was familiar now. Not this priest, just the temple. And he didn’t seem to recognize me either. Not unless he was a really good actor, but I didn’t buy that angle.

“Are you always here? Or are there other priests?” He hadn’t been expecting me to ask that. He got thoughtful.

“Yes. All the members of our clergy take a turn overseeing the chapel.” Now he was getting a little suspicious. “Why do you ask?”

I decided the truth was my best bet. “This place seems real familiar for some reason. Like I’ve been here before even though I don’t remember it. I was just wondering if one of the other priests might remember me or something.” The truth didn’t mean he needed to know everything though. If one of the priests here was involved in my memory loss, then hearing about me showing up might shake something loose. People panicked and got sloppy when they thought their schemes were falling apart.

“Perhaps this is a sign,” the priest suggested. “Avia does not often grace us mortals with their attention, but there have been plenty of instances over the centuries to set precedence.” I liked that idea less that one of the priests here being involved. I’d had enough attention from gods in TunFaire to last me a lifetime. 

“Maybe. Thanks I guess.” I gave him a polite nod and made for the door. I’d need to get the Dead Man’s opinion on all this. Maybe he knew something about Avia and their temple. I wondered if Morley had managed to dig anything up yet.

The bruno next door was still on duty when I got out. He had a sour look on his face still but didn’t look outright antagonistic. I was ready to get out of the Dream Quarter but I had time for one last stop.

“Hey chum, why the long face?” He must not have been expecting me to come on over for a chat. I wouldn’t have in his position. You looked like a hired thug, people tended to avoid you.

“What d’you want, Avite?” Not too friendly, huh? I put on my best clueless face.

“A what-ite? You mean those guys?” I stuck a thumb over my shoulder at Avia’s temple. 

The bruno didn’t look quite so sour anymore. “So you’re not one of them? I didn’t think you looked the type.” He lost his stiff posture. “What’re you goin’ in there for then?” 

“I’m working.” He seemed confused. 

“Workin’? What kinda work?” I tried to explain the bare bones of what my job entailed. Bless his muscle-bound little head, ol’ bruno didn’t get it. He just stared at me like I was talking nonsense, and not the kind you usually hear around here.

I tried again. “Right now my job is finding out whatever I can about these – what did you call them? Avites? Guy I’m working for wants to know all about them. I’ve never heard of them before though, so I don’t have much.” No reason he had to know the guy I was working for was me. At least that seemed to finally make sense to him. I really had to start leading with the most straightforward explanation from the get go. “Actually, maybe you can help me out. You out here often?”

“Yeah, almost every day,” he said. My luck was looking up. 

“You ever see anything interesting going on over there?” That set him thinking. I could tell it took a lot of effort. 

“I haven’t seen anybody new over there except for you. Everybody else comes an’ goes pretty regular. They don’t get as many people as us or the other temples around here.” I had already figured most of that out for myself, but it was always good to get it from a reliable source. I nodded like his information had actually been helpful, and in a way it had been. 

“Alright, thanks. What about the Avites? Or their god? Anything I should know about them?” The bruno shrugged dismissively. 

“They think they’re better than everyone else, when the only reason they’re not at the bottom of the street is ‘cause they’ve got some rich family lookin’ out for them. They got some kinda thing about their god havin’ a kid way back when, an’ lookin’ for all the descendents. If they even exist.” More food for thought. 

That bit about the existence of somebody like Cat, running around with not entirely mortal blood, caught my attention. It would be just my luck that something like that was connected to my situation. Could someone have hired me to find that descendent the Avites thought existed? And then somebody else hadn’t wanted them found? Maybe even the potential descendent themself? I needed to get this back to the Dead Man. I was sure he’d have an idea of where to go from here.

My new friend was still waiting for a reply. 

“That helps. Thanks again.” I glanced at the temple behind him. It was familiar too, but not in the same way the Avite temple was. More like the answer was on the tip of my tongue but the answer wasn’t actually all that important.

The bruno puffed up like strutting rooster. “This here’s Shamgar’s temple.” There it was.

Shamgar was technically one of a few gods in his pantheon, but nobody these days paid much attention to anybody other than him. He was a real fire and brimstone type, a god of conflict and strife, reasonably popular with soldiers in the Cantard. He wasn’t the kind of guy you would want watching your back so much as he was who you invoked when you needed to hit the enemy as hard as you could. 

The war keeping on would suit Shamgar just fine, in fact he probably wasn’t too happy about things slowing down like they were. Then again, there was getting to be a good deal of conflict and strife right here in TunFaire, so maybe it all evened out for him.

“I thought it looked familiar. Army?” He had that look. The kind that said he’d hated serving his time and gone through just as much hell as the rest of us, but once he’d gotten back his whole identity had been built around his mandatory years of service. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he was involved with one of the human’s rights groups.

“Yeah! You?”

“Marines.” He did the usual song and dance of asking me if I knew so-and-so or whether I’d heard of what’s-his-name for a bit. I managed to get away after a while but it took longer than I would have liked. 


	4. Chapter 4

It was a small relief to get out of the Dream Quarter. I headed towards home, done with wandering in the slim hope that I might stumble across another lead. About halfway there I noticed I’d picked up a tail. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t already been on edge from missing so much time. I was tired from waking up so early. I was hungry because it was well past lunch and I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast this morning. I didn’t have the patience to try anything clever to lose my tail or find out who it was. Let them watch me go home and spend the next few hours holed up there.

Then again, it could be somebody hired by one of the Avites. Maybe my play had gotten some results already. The priest I’d talked to could have been involved after all. This might be my best chance to grab somebody and squeeze some answers out of them. I sighed and thought longingly of Dean’s cooking and the leftovers he’d have waiting for me from lunch. There wasn’t anything for it except to get on with things.

Whoever was following me, they sure weren’t an amateur. I decided my best bet was to take a blind corner that wasn’t too out of place on the path to my house, then find a good hiding spot to see who came around it after me. I had a few options to choose from that fit the bill nicely. I picked the closest and changed my route accordingly.

After I turned the corner I only had to wait a couple minutes for my tail to show up. I didn’t expect to recognize them. I really didn’t expect it to be Morley. He scanned the afternoon traffic, and once he was done his eyes darted straight to my hiding spot without hesitation. He didn’t seem surprised that I’d caught him. With one last look at the crowd he strolled over, like he hadn’t just been tailing me. I waited for him to settle into place on the wall beside me, like we’d planned it, before I said something.

“There a reason you’re following me?” Morley didn’t answer me right away, too busy frowning as he scanned the crowd again.

“I thought for sure I saw someone tailing you. You see anybody come around that corner before me?” Really now? If there’d been somebody else following me and Morley hadn’t been able to spot them then they were  _ good. _ That is if Morley wasn’t just making that up to cover his own agenda. I don’t know what it would have been, but Morley’s thought process sometimes made no sense to me on my better days, much less now. 

“No. What’d they look like?” 

He shook his head. “I couldn’t get a good look. It was weird.” He seemed unsettled by that. Hell, I was unsettled by it. It was just one more weird thing on a list of weird things that had taken up residence in my life. 

“They gone now?” I took a look at the crowd myself. Nobody stood out in particular. When I was done and he had my attention again Morley nodded. “Damn. Think it has anything to do with our mystery?”

Morley shrugged. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t rule it out though.”

“Yeah.” I pushed off the wall and started walking again. “So why did you come find me? Did you remember something?” Morley frowned again, hesitated. He’d started to walk with me but stopped now. I stopped too and raised an eyebrow. He didn’t notice, too busy staring off into the crowd. I checked again just to make sure nobody who might be my other tail had shown up. There were no obvious culprits.

I turned back to Morley. He spent another minute thinking before I got an answer. 

“I did what the Dead Man suggested,” he began. “Do whatever I would usually do, see if anything stands out, use that to try and jog my memory.” He seemed to come back to himself and stopped staring at the crowd. “I got nothing from that, by the way. Everything was only the regular kind of familiar, none of it brought any of my memory back.” He started walking and I followed his aimless path. Or at least it seemed aimless at first glance. I quickly realized that while it might look like Morley was wandering thoughtlessly while he talked, he was carefully directing us on a route that would make it easier to clearly see a tail.

I offered,“If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t remembered anything yet either.” 

“So much,” Morley said flatly with a roll of his eyes. “But I wasn’t finished.” I held my hands up in surrender at the look he shot my way. “Anyway, I left to go for a run after lunch, like I usually do. Only about an hour ago I realized someone was following me. I was never able to get a good look at them, and once they figured out that I knew they were there, they ran off. I figured it might have something to do with this, so I headed for your house.” I just nodded obligingly as Morley explained. He didn’t sound like he was done yet.

“Only on my way there I found them again. And now they were tailing you instead. So I kept my distance and tried to get a good look at them while they were busy following you.” For a second he got quiet again. “The weird thing is that following them felt familiar. I never got more than a glimpse of them, but I felt like I’d been there, doing the same thing before.” Now that had to be connected somehow, even if it wasn’t the same guy.

“You sure it was the same person who was tailing you? I thought you said you didn’t get a good look at them?” I didn’t doubt that he was. Morley’s eyes were sharper than mine most of the time.

“It was them. A guy about my height, human or close enough, thin as a whip. Ginger hair.” He blinked in surprise as something occurred to him and he glanced my way. “Exact same color as yours. You don’t have any cousins who might be wandering around, do you?” 

“Not any that short or with red hair. And none of them were in TunFaire last I checked.” Most people here with red hair sported either a deep, intensely red auburn or a bright coppery color, like Tinnie’s. You didn’t see the less vivid shades like mine very often. The only time I’d ever seen a similar color had been on my dad, and the few locks of Grandma Garrett’s hair that had managed to hold onto their color until I was born. It had all been completely white by the time she died when I was a teenager. So, Morley thinking this guy could be related to me wasn’t too much of a leap. 

Morley made a weird face and shook his head. “Then we’re back to where we started.” We walked in silence for awhile. Our red-headed friend didn’t make a repeat appearance. I spent the time working what I’d found out in the Dream Quarter over in my head. I didn’t have enough pieces yet to put the whole picture together, but it was a start. 

Meanwhile I was becoming uncomfortably aware of Morley walking next to me and of the silence between us. I didn’t want to bring this morning up, but since he’d been followed before I was, the chances of him only being collateral damage in this missing memory business were getting pretty slim. I felt like I should say something but didn’t know what. I didn’t figure it out before we made it to the house.

“Better come give the Dead Man an update with me,” I said while I dug my key out. “I don’t know how relevant what I found out is, but he might be able to jiggle something loose this time.” Dean had actually left his chains and latches undone for once. I was able to get into my own house with the very expensive key and lock he’d convinced me to pay for. Will wonders ever cease? 

“I thought you said you hadn’t remembered anything?” The God Damn Parrot started up when we shut the front door behind us. Dean poked his head out of the kitchen with an alarmed look on his face. It didn’t go away when he saw it was us.

“I didn’t. Dean, what’s with the face?” He looked at us, looked at the key still in my hand, looked at the door.

“I latched it after you left earlier,” Dean said. He blinked owlishly, dumbfounded. Me and Morley looked back at the door, as if it had any answers to give. 

“Did you?” The weird feeling was back. I felt the Dead Man start paying attention to the conversation and T.G.P. quieted down a little.

“Yes, I always latch it when you’re working.” That didn’t bode well at all.

“What about you Bones? You notice anything?” Morley bent to take a look at the latches and I didn’t stop him. He had more knowledge when it came to picking locks that would tell him more than whatever I could find. 

_ The door was indeed securely latched after you and Mr. Dotes departed. I have not felt any intrusions or interference. _

The Dead Man didn’t sound outright alarmed like Dean but he was definitely concerned. If somebody entered the house and he wasn’t napping, he knew about it. If somebody had come in without alerting him or Dean, we had bigger problems than mine and Morley’s missing memories.

“Wonderful. So somebody can just get in here without anyone noticing? Not even the Parrot?” Speak of the devil. He’d quieted down almost entirely, but I just had to go and open my big mouth and now he was back to full volume. 

Something about the noise sounded different though. I stuck my head into the front room to check it out and I could feel the Dead Man piggybacking on my sight. He couldn’t see through the bird’s eyes for whatever reason. 

The Goddamned Parrot was on his perch making plenty of noise, but he lacked his usual foul mouth. Someone had draped a rope over it, knotted and interspersed with little brightly painted wooden cubes. T.G.P was gleefully squawking at the top of his lungs, beating his wings as he held the end of the rope with one foot, shaking it so that the wooden cubes clattered against the stand of his perch and each other.

“What the hell?” I muttered. I didn’t get an answer from the Dead Man. The Parrot ignored me entirely, the squawking quieting to a more reasonable volume as he leaned down to gnaw on one of the cubes. There were already marks on most of them, evidence that he’d been hard at work chewing on those too. “Where did that come from? Did Dean get it somewhere?” I don't remember seeing that knotted rope before and I had no clue as to its intended purpose. 

The G.D.P. was having a grand old time regardless. I couldn’t decide if this noise was more or less tolerable than the variety of impolite phrases Morley and his boys had taught it. 

_ I am unsure.  _ His presence in my mind went distant like it did when he was talking to somebody else.  _ He insists that he did not bring it into the house. I do not sense any danger from it, but the fact it is here at all doesn’t bode well. _

“No kidding.” I was liking this day less and less. “Any idea what it is?” 

_ I’m afraid not.  _

I wondered if I should be letting him keep it. Then I decided I didn’t care if it actually was dangerous and the Parrot ended up dead. Plus I didn’t want to think about trying to get it away from him.

_ The bird is too valuable to lose. _

“You said it wasn’t dangerous.”

_ I said I did not sense any danger. That does not mean there is none present.  _

I grumbled to myself but didn’t argue. When he got his mind made up about something there was no changing it. I cautiously approached the perch, trying to decide the best way to do this without losing a finger. Once I got a couple feet away T.G.P. stopped fiddling with the rope so he could eye me. There went my element of surprise.

“Can you hold him still?” I asked. The Dead Man’s presence in my head dimmed again and the Parrot went unnaturally still, his eyes getting an almost glazed look to them. I darted forward and hastily pried his talons from around the rope. I fumbled a few times before I was able to get him to let go thanks to the Dead Man’s efforts. The Goddamn Parrot started moving a few seconds later and I had to leap back to avoid his beak.

“Why the hell did you let him go so quick?” T.G.P. was back to his usual self, cursing me out colorfully as I backed out of the room to keep him in sight. I shut the door tightly in case he decided to try and take his new mood out on me. 

_ Something odd is at work here. I had similar trouble controlling the bird now as I did earlier, when it was in close proximity to the horse. _

“You think it was this?” I looked a little more closely at the rope. The Parrot had really done a number on those wooden cubes. There were already spots where he’d worn through the paint and gouged the wood.

_ I believe it to be likely. Bring it to my room, you and Mr. Dotes can reveal what you have found while I examine it more closely. _

Morley was already in the Dead Man’s room when I got there. He glanced over when I walked in and set the coin he’d been examining back on one of the Dead Man’s shelves. A souvenir from a past case. The coin had been minted by a doomsday cult whose god had actually been a dead Loghyr even older than the Dead Man. 

Morley took a seat in a chair that was usually at home in my office. The Dead Man must have had Dean bring it in while I was gone. I sat down in my usual seat opposite the Dead Man’s chair. He also must have said something to Dean about how hungry I was, because he brought in a tray laden with lunch and tea.

_ Now, tell me what you have found thus far. _

I regaled him and Morley with the tale of my morning after we’d parted ways, leaving nothing out. Any little detail that I might deem insignificant could be the piece of the puzzle the Dead Man needed to put everything together. I paused periodically to shovel food into my mouth. By the time I’d cleaned my plate I was done with my story and the Dead Man turned his attention to Morley.

_ And what of you, Mr. Dotes?  _

Morley shrugged one shoulder. “Garrett already told you everything. The only thing I had was the guy who tailed us both.” Morley’s face went carefully neutral after that and I could tell the Dead Man was talking to him privately. 

Whatever they were discussing was making Morley uncomfortable. He was clenching his jaw and his neutral expression grew strained. I had an idea of what they might be talking about so I focused on gulping down the mug of tea Dean had brought me. 

_ It appears we have someplace to start now. We shall have to look into these Avites and their search for the descendents of their god. If this character who has followed you both is involved, we will likely find them among the Avite’s priests. You made the speculation that you were hired by this church to find a descendent of Avia, Garrett? _

“Yeah. Seems as likely as anything else right now. Would explain why their temple felt so familiar.” I couldn’t think of how else I would have had a reason to be there before. 

_ Surprisingly astute. _

I narrowed my eyes at the Dead Man. “Hey.”

_ Do not be offended Garrett, I’m impressed. For once you have not allowed the more personal aspects of a puzzle interfere with the drawing of conclusions. _

That wasn’t exactly better, but it was likely the best I’d get. I could tell he was really gearing up to get into serious mystery solving mode. He got pretty self-important when he did that and treated the rest of us like we were barely smart enough to tie our own shoelaces. There would be no reasoning with him until all of this was cleared up. I slumped in my chair and sipped at the tea Dean had brought with what I was sure was a gloomy expression.

_ It remains unclear as to whether the horse is involved. Its appearance may simply be coincidence, but we cannot yet rule out the possibility that it plays some part. The odd effect it has on the area around it is cause enough for that. I suggest we allow Mr. Tharpe to complete the task you have given him, and focus on the Avites.  _

“That’s fine with me. Let Saucerhead deal with that demon spawn,” I grumbled into my mug. That earned me an amused snort from Morley. I hadn’t been fishing for one, I was being completely sincere about how much I didn’t like that horse, but for some reason getting a laugh from him was immensely satisfying. It felt intense in a pretty uncomfortable way. Unlikely though I knew it was I hoped the Dead Man hadn’t noticed. If he had he was blessedly silent about it. 

_ I have a single question for you, Garrett – the priest you spoke to at the temple, did he recognize you? _

I had to think about that. My gut said he didn’t but I’d also been distracted. He could have been a good actor. There was a chance he’d known me and I hadn’t noticed. I told the Dead Man so. 

_ The most effective solution would be to bring the priest here, but that is hardly feasible. Especially if these Avites are the source of your memory loss. They have access to powerful magic if they are to blame, powerful enough that I can be affected as well without realizing. No, we must first gather information about their god, Avia. Perhaps our friend Linda Lee may be of some help. _

He may be right about that. The last time we had to find some information about TunFaire’s gods and their cults, I’d sweet talked Linda into carting over a bunch of old books on the subject so she and Tinnie could read them to the Dead Man. Technically that had been stealing because technically the library didn’t loan out those kinds of important historical texts. Not that it mattered since they’d been returned before Linda Lee’s boss had noticed they were gone. 

“I’ll go talk to her when we’re done here, see what she can dig up.” If anybody could find what we needed, it was Linda Lee. 

_ I have nothing more to discuss. See Linda Lee and send her here with whatever volumes she believes will be helpful. I believe it would be wise to have Mr. Dotes accompany you. Neither of you have had success regaining any memories individually, perhaps you will have better luck together.  _

I looked over at Morley. He didn’t seem surprised by the suggestion. The Dead Man must have already mentioned it to him in their private conversation. “Alright.” I examined the rope and wooden cubes from my seat. “What about that?” I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of leaving it in the house, whether the Dead Man was keeping an eye on it or not. 

_ An excellent question. I cannot determine any magical properties it may have. It did not have the same effect when you carried it as it did when the Parrot held it. _

I thought about what we could do. I didn’t want to leave it here, but I didn’t want to carry it around with me either. If I went to see Linda Lee and it made something dangerous happen I’d feel bad if she got hurt. Plus I’d never hear the end of it if something happened to her library, or gods forbid any of the books there. “Is it safe to carry around?” I had an idea of where I might get some answers about it. 

_ I do not see why not. It only reacted when in the Parrot’s possession. _

I’d take it with me then. It wasn’t very long and the cubes weren’t more than a couple inches across each face so it bundled up into a neat little pile that fit right in my pocket. 

Dean was waiting when Morley and I came out of the Dead Man’s room. He seemed much calmer than earlier and even a little contrite, though I didn’t know what about yet. I was sure I’d find out soon.

He told me, “Ms. Tate came by while you were out.” I raised an eyebrow. Did she now? And the Dead Man had conveniently forgotten to mention that?

_ We have more pressing matters than yours and Ms. Tate’s capricious relationship.  _

He kind of had a point. But I couldn’t imagine she’d have shown up for something trivial. I didn’t know what I’d done to make her angry and cause our breakup this time either, but she had been well and truly incensed last I’d seen. I’d also heard about it from Dean for the past few weeks. We might have been on the outs at the moment but it seemed like Tinnie – and every other lady friend I’d had lately – always had time to stop by and chat with Dean. 

She had to have been here to see me too. If she’d only come to see him Dean wouldn’t have bothered mentioning it to me. “And what did she want?” I adored Tinnie, really I did, but I just didn’t have the energy to deal with her being angry at me right now. I hoped that whatever she needed, it wasn’t urgent.

“She didn’t say, but she was very insistent on speaking with you.” Wonderful. Whatever it was I had a feeling that it wasn’t good. Guess I was adding the Tate compound to my list of stops for the afternoon. I ran a tired hand over my face and then through my hair. 

I hadn’t realized it this morning, seeing as there’d been more important things to deal with right after I’d woken up, but I’d been incriminatingly sweaty. I wondered if Morley had washed up since we’d parted ways earlier. He didn’t look like he had a hair out of place.

“Could you actually find out what she needs if she shows up again while I’m gone? Dean? Chuckles?” I could feel the Dead Man’s aggravation. He never had any patience for any of my lady friends or the drama they brought to my life. He only dealt with the drama I stirred up for myself because he had to. To his credit, Dean nodded.

_ I will inquire as to her situation, but I make no promises.  _

Good enough.

“Great, thanks.” I opened the front door and took a step outside. Only to stop in my tracks and stare dumbfounded.

That God Damned Horse was back. 

How the hell was it back? Horses loved Playmate, and the last I’d seen he’d been over the moon for this one. I recalled that me and Morley had seen it leading a whole herd of it’s buddies through the streets, pursued by a harried stablehand. I’d known this thing was going to be a problem the moment I’d first seen it. Maybe Playmate would start to believe me when I said horses were up to no good. 

Morley stepped out onto the street next to me. “Didn’t you take that to Playmate?” 

“Yeah, I did. Guess it didn’t take.” The horse was giving me its undivided attention. It was still deeply unsettling to be the focus of its eerie blue eyes. The braids and flowers were all gone, leaving its mane and tail to flutter artfully in the breeze. Bad news, no two ways about it. At least it looked like Playmate had managed to get a proper bridle on the beast. A soft cornflower blue that almost matched its eyes. 

Morley carefully approached the monster. He circled it once from a safe distance before deciding it was safe and confidently approaching from well within the horses sightline. It glanced at him, stared for a moment, then dismissed him as a non-threat and went back to staring at me. Joy. 

He got up next to it at the shoulder and if I thought I’d felt small next to that thing, Morley must feel like a dwarf. It paid him a little more attention when he patted its shoulder, turning its huge head to snuffle at the hand he offered. It snorted, twitched its ears a few times, then bent lower, offering the top of its head to Morley’s hand.

“I don’t get you Garrett,” he said, scratching between its ears. “It’s just a horse. Huge, sure, but just a horse.”

“Dead Man said it’s not,” I countered. It came out sounding more petulant than anything else and I scowled. 

“And what about every other horse, then?” I had no answer. Morley knew full well my problems with their whole tribe, I’d made a point of it often enough. The Dead Man didn’t care to weigh in on the fact he agreed with me in this particular instance. 

“What am I going to do with this thing? If Playmate can’t get it to stay put, I don’t know who can.” 

Morley gave me a flat look, like he thought I was being particularly obtuse. “Then you don’t try to make it stay put. Take it with us, if it’s just going to show back up anyway.” 

I crossed my arms and scowled harder. “No way.” I was putting my foot down. “I already had to deal with dragging that thing through town once, I’m not doing it again.” Morley raised an eyebrow at how vehemently I was protesting. I felt the Dead Man prod at me.

_ Time may very well be of the essence. Please reach a compromise quickly and be done with it. _

“And what if keeping the horse around is what the people who messed with our heads wants?” The Dead Man felt aggravated. He was being touchier than usual since I’d gotten back from the Dream Quarter.

_ Then we shall deal with that when the time comes. Now please put aside your immature vendetta against the equine species and get going. _

Wow. He really was in some kind of mood. He’d practically snapped at me just then. For all that the mental impression of words could sound snappish. 

I muttered to myself, “Alright, fine, calm down.” The horse had lifted its head again when I started talking to the Dead Man to stare at me. Almost like it could hear the Dead Man’s half of the conversation too. I didn’t like that idea. 

I looked at Morley. He was leaning on the horses shoulder, arms crossed, and joined it in staring at me. He raised an eyebrow. Damn it. 

“Okay, say we do take it with us. What then? It’s going to look a little conspicuous leaving it in in front of the library while we talk to Linda Lee. And in case you hadn’t realized, we’re trying to avoid being noticed.” Morley rolled his eyes.

“Then we don’t leave it in front of the library,” he said like it was obvious. “We hitch it a few streets over and go the rest of the way without it. There’s enough hitching posts around there it shouldn’t be hard to find one.” I pressed my lips into a thin line and frowned. I had no counter for that. Worse, I was being ganged up on. I could maybe win against Morley or the Dead Man individually, but together? I had to have a better argument prepared for that. 

I grit my teeth and made a big show of crossing my arms and scowling. “Fine. But I want to state for the record that I don’t like it.” 

Morley looked more than a little exasperated. “Noted,” he said. 

“And I’m not riding it again.” I would not budge on that point. The only way anyone was getting me back on that thing was unconscious. Something about it gave me a case of the chills like nobody’s business. 

And it was  _ still _ staring at me. I was fairly certain it hadn’t blinked once since it had gotten here. Why had you betrayed me, Playmate? 

“Fine,” Morley stopped leaning. “I assume you don’t want to lead it?”

“Nope.” I didn’t even want to be near it. I don’t know why he bothered asking, he obviously already knew what my answer was going to be. I started walking, immediately heard the horse following. It was surprisingly quiet for how big it was. Then Morley was next to me, hands in his pockets and conspicuously free of a lead. 

I looked back and found the horse sedately following a few feet behind us, the lead draped over its shoulders so it wouldn’t drag on the ground. 

“You really think it’s a good idea to let it just walk around like that?” I wondered. Morley snorted.

“Like either of us could stop it, if it decides it wants to run off?” He had me there. I’d wager even Doris or Marsha, Morley’s groll maybe-relatives, would have some trouble keeping that monster contained. 

At least it seemed content to plod along after us instead of going on a murderous rampage. I didn’t like having it at my back like this. It wouldn’t really matter where it was if it wanted to have a go at me, but I felt especially vulnerable having it out of sight. 


	5. Chapter 5

The horse earned us plenty of looks as we made our way uptown, just like last time. Mostly people were too distracted by the sheer size of the beast to pay any attention to me or Morley. There were a few that gave us alarmed or disbelieving glances though. I didn’t blame the ones who didn’t seem to know how they should react. 

Oh, to be one of the hundreds of these nameless people in TunFaire, who didn’t have to deal with giant horses, or gods, or having their memories tampered with. 

We found a hitching post a couple streets away from the library just like Morley had suggested. He tied the horse up while I tried once more to glare it into submission.

“Stay put,” I told it sternly. The effect may have been dampered a little by the very obvious fact that I wouldn’t get within three feet of it. The horse blinked at me and heaved a long sigh. It flicked its tail and seemed to settle in for a long wait. Morley looked between us with something like surprise.

“Does it understand us?” he asked once we were a street over. 

“Sure seems that way sometimes, doesn’t it?” He looked over his shoulder like he expected to find the horse suddenly behind us again. Finally he seemed to be as uneasy with the thought of keeping it around as I was. Maybe there was hope yet.

I didn’t know if Morley had ever been here. He let me take the lead without comment, following along silently as I took us past the sleeping guard. The young guy I’d seen last time was gone and the old vet was back, napping in his chair as usual. He didn’t stir when we crept past him into the dim chamber of the main library. 

I didn’t hear Linda Lee’s boss skulking around anywhere, but if there was one thing I knew it’s that that old woman was never too far from her haunting grounds. Morley’s footsteps were completely silent and I thought he’d wandered off more than once as I searched through the shelves for Linda. I couldn’t even hear him breathing, but whenever I looked back to check if he was still there I found him no more than a foot away. Even I made some noise shuffling through the space between shelves and I’d snuck in to see Linda more than a few times.

We eventually came across Linda Lee on the far side of the library, her back to us as she moved books from a cart beside her into empty spaces on the shelf with the help of a bright lamp. 

“Hey, Linda,” I said quietly, hoping to not spook her too badly. She jumped anyway, slapping a hand over her mouth to muffle a shriek and fumbling the book she’d been holding. I darted forward and caught it before it hit the ground. Linda Lee looked at me with wide eyes, one hand still over her mouth and the other clutching her chest.

“Garrett!” she hissed once she’d removed her hand, “Don’t sneak up on me like that! You nearly gave me a heart attack!” 

I grinned at her sheepishly. “Sorry, I was trying not to surprise you.” That seemed to have some positive effect. She took the book back calmly when I offered it rather than snatching it out of my grasp and only frowned a little now. 

“So what do you want this time?” Damn, she had me figured out already. I pressed a hand to my breast, put on my best hurt face. 

“What, a guy can’t visit his favorite librarian?” That got me a small smile. I counted that as a victory. 

“He can, but he also usually has another reason for visiting.” Linda Lee wasn’t my favorite librarian for nothing. She also happened to be the only librarian I knew personally, but that was semantics. 

“I could say the same thing to you.” I grinned at her suddenly abashed expression. “But you’re right, I did want to know if you could help us with something.” Linda looked confused.

“Us?” she wondered. Then she glanced past me and jumped again. She must not have noticed Morley before now. I usually came to see her alone, and it wasn’t like he’d announced himself. “Oh, hello.” 

“Linda Lee, Morley Dotes,” I introduced, “Morley, Linda Lee.” 

Morley put on the smile he reserved for beautiful women and took a step forward. “Lovely to meet you, Linda Lee.” Like most women I’d seen on the receiving end of Morley’s charms, Linda got flustered. 

“Oh– thank you– it’s nice to–,” She paused and cleared her throat. “It’s nice to meet you too, Mr. Dotes.” I have to admit I was a little jealous. The uncomfortable thing was that I didn’t know who I was actually jealous of. I did my best to bury that feeling somewhere deep, where I’d never have to examine it more closely. Linda had gotten herself under control while I had my little internal crisis and was back to her usual professional attitude.

“So, what is it that you and Mr. Dotes needed?”

“Have you ever heard of a god called Avia?” I watched Linda Lee frown as her gaze went distant, her brow furrowing slightly as she thought. 

“I think so, maybe? Can you tell me anything else?” I ran through what I’d learned about the Avites today, and in turn what little I knew about Avia themself. Linda chewed her bottom lip as she thought some more, even putting a hand to her chin. Without a word she turned on her heel and zipped down the walkway between shelves we were standing in. I shared a look with Morley and we followed. 

When we caught up to her Linda Lee was scanning the spines of the books in front of her, trailing her finger across titles as she raced through them faster than I could ever hope to. She let out a little  _ aha! _ as she finally stopped on one, pulling it from the shelf and flipping it open.

“I thought we had something,” she said as she turned the pages. “There aren’t many religions with a single god, and most of them aren’t around anymore.” She finally stopped turning pages and scanned the tiny, faded text. “The Avites are an old religion, but they aren’t very popular. I think this may be one of the only records we have here, but they’ve been around as long as TunFaire has existed.” Great, old and mysterious. Maybe Linda wouldn’t be much help to us at all.

“Is there any way you could take this to the Dead Man? And anything else you can find about them?” Linda Lee frowned then. I wasn’t sure that any amount of charm, from me or from Morely, would be any help.

“Garrett, you know I can’t just take books out of the library!” she whisper-shouted. “And this one is our only copy! Not to mention that anything else we have about Avia or their followers is likely to be just as valuable!”

I let myself get serious. “Linda, this is important. We’re running against the clock here, and the Dead Man needs all the information about the Avites that we can find.” She got a bit wide-eyed again so I eased off a little. “And you got all your books back safe and sound the last time you brought them to the Dead Man, right? It won’t be any different this time, I promise.” 

Linda looked torn. She closed the book and held it to her chest, shifting her weight from foot to foot as she thought. The shifting quickly graduated to pacing the width of the aisle we were in. 

I played my final card. “You’re the only one who can help us, Linda.” 

“Oh, fine,” she said as she stopped pacing. “But if anything happens to those books, I’ll never forgive you Garrett! You can forget about ever getting help from me again.” I gave her my most confident grin.

“You’re a lifesaver, Linda Lee. Don’t worry about a thing.” There was a sound from somewhere else in the library. Slow footsteps interspersed with the rhythmic noise of a cane tapping the floor. Linda jolted up straight and began ushering us in the opposite direction. 

“You need to go!” I didn’t argue. Morley and I darted into the gloom outside of the lamplight, slowing once we were a few shelves away. This part of the library was much darker, almost too dark for me to see. I bumped nose-first into a shelf with a quiet curse. 

I jumped when Morley grabbed me by the wrist. In my haste to get away before Linda Lee’s boss made her appearance I’d actually forgotten I had him with me. Morley led the way, pulling me along behind him. He probably had no problem seeing where he was going thanks to his dark elf eyes. 

Even as we circled around the edge of the room, and back to where it was easier for me to see, he didn’t let go of my wrist. Something kept me from pulling my hand away. We made it out the door and past the sleeping guard with Morley still holding onto me. 

It wasn’t until we’d stopped, just before the door that would take us back outside, that Morley seemed to realize he hadn’t let go. He immediately dropped my wrist and took his hand back. His eyes darted to my face and then away a second later. 

I pushed down the completely uncalled for disappointment I was feeling. Morley pushed open the door and left before I could think of anything to say. I gave my head a good shake. Once I felt I had my thoughts in some kind of order I followed him.

Morley hadn’t made it very far. He was at the foot of the steps leading up to the library entrance, arms crossed as he frowned out at the crowd. I made it down to him and we started walking. The silence between us now as we made our way back to the horse felt even more tense than it had before. 

“Morley–,” I began. I cut myself off as we came into view of the horse, who was now sporting a new companion. Thankfully not another horse, I didn’t think I could handle that. It was Saucerhead standing next to it and looking like he was waiting for something. Somebody his size almost made that thing look normal. He spotted me and Morley moving through the crowd and waved. 

“Hey, Garrett,” he said. “Morley.” They nodded at each other. 

“Saucerhead. What’s up? You got something for me?” The illusion was broken the closer we got. The horse was back to being huge and monstrous by the time Saucerhead took a step away from it to meet us. 

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s not much though.” He looked over his shoulder at the horse. “I thought you were taking it to Playmate’s?” I allowed myself a put upon sigh.

“I did. It didn’t take.” Saucerhead ‘huh’d in response. “Now what’d you find out?” He considered the horse a moment more before turning back to me.

“I found the stable it’s supposed to be at,” he told me. “Apparently it broke out sometime this morning. Took a bunch of other horses with it, too.” I’d figured that much out already. Knowing the stable it had sprung itself from was helpful though. 

“Anything else? Like who it belongs to?” I could hope. Saucerhead just shrugged and shook his head at me.

“‘Fraid not. It was one of those fancy stables, they wouldn’t tell me who’s horse it is.” Damn. It had been worth a try. 

“Thanks anyway. Which stable?” He told me. I gave him a couple more copper pieces for his trouble. That made me remember the familiar feeling I’d gotten the last time we spoke. “One last thing. You remember doing anything else for me the last couple days?” 

That made his brow furrow in confusion. Poor Saucerhead was a good friend, but the guy wasn’t exactly the sharpest. Then again, he’d proven himself to have more depth than I’d thought more than a few times. Maybe I needed to revise my estimation of him a little.

“Yeah. A few days ago. Do you not remember?” That had Morley paying attention too.

“I don’t. It’s a long story. What did I ask you to do?” If Saucerhead still had his memory then he was currently our best lead. I hoped he knew what I’d gotten into.

“You asked me to follow somebody for you. Said you couldn’t do it yourself.” Now that was interesting.

“Who was it?” Hoping for a name would be too much, wouldn’t it? I got another shrug.

“I dunno. I couldn’t manage it though, I lost them after an hour and couldn’t find them again.” I held back a disappointed sigh. It wasn’t Saucerhead’s fault my luck was so abysmal. Morley tilted his head in thought.

“What did they look like?” he asked. Saucerhead described near exactly the person Morley had said was following me earlier. My bet was on it being the same person. Whatever Morley was thinking, he kept it to himself. 

“Thanks Saucerhead, that helps,” I told him. “You have any idea why I asked you to follow them?” 

“I think you were working on something. I didn’t ask, and you didn’t tell me.” That was a little disappointing. Usually I had to try to keep my mouth shut. Now for once I was wishing I hadn’t. 

“Alright. I guess that’s it.” He frowned.

“I wish I could’ve been more help,” he said. It was my turn to shrug now. 

“You helped enough. Just let me know if you remember anything else?”

“‘Course, Garrett.” Saucerhead didn’t seem too happy with how little information he’d given me, but he gave me and Morley another nod before ambling off into the crowd. I watched him go while I did some thinking.

“That stable isn’t too far from here,” I said. In actuality it was about as close as Tinnie’s place was and even a little out of the way. If I was being honest, I was looking for an excuse to put off seeing her. I told myself it was because she might be expecting some kind of apology for the thing I still didn’t remember doing.

“Is it?” Morley wondered. 

“It is. Let’s go.” I didn’t wait for Morley to untie the horse before I started walking. I could hear it making a fuss as I got further away, the sound of huge hooves pawing the cobblestone punctuated by impatient snorting. Then the horses heavy footfalls as it caught up. 

Morley caught up too, falling into step on my left. He gave me a dirty look.

“Would it have killed you to wait? That thing started getting uncooperative the second you got more than five feet away.”

“You’re the one who wanted to bring it along.” That got me a severe frown and narrowed eyes. Whatever I could tell Morley wanted to say to that, he kept it to himself. He’d always done that plenty but it seemed like it was happening more than usual now. 

I let Morley stew in his bad mood for a while. We certainly had time before we got to the stable. It was far from being a short walk. I briefly considered trying to bring up what had happened back at the library again. It felt like something that we needed to talk about, especially with everything else that may or may not have happened. 

I tried to convince myself to say something. Then I told myself that I hadn’t because the street was so crowded. This kind of conversation needed some privacy. Then it was because Morley was already in a bad mood. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it before, so he doubly wouldn’t now. 

I knew deep down that those were just excuses to avoid a conversation I didn’t want to have either. I wasn’t sure I liked how much avoiding I was doing today. I was going to lose a bit of respect for myself if I kept letting myself put off situations that needed dealing with just because I knew they were going to be uncomfortable. 

I cast about for something to fill the silence. The horse huffed behind us and drew my attention. I looked over my shoulder to eye it suspiciously. It tried to look innocent, but I knew better than to trust it. 

“So who do you think owns this thing?” I ended up asking, just to have said something. Morley looked back now too. The both of us considered the horse like it might start telling us itself who owned it, why it was following me around, and what it had to do with our memories going missing. 

The horse didn’t seem to care much that we were looking to it for answers. It just kept plodding forward without a care, never letting itself lag more than a couple feet behind us. That unfortunately had the side effect of it looming over me and Morley, something I could have done without. 

“Some eccentric tradesman on the Hill?” Morley suggested. “Maybe even a carriage maker? I could see one of them having some ridiculous prize horse to lead a team just for show.” If this horse was just for show I’d eat my non-existent hat. I wasn’t sure why I had such a strong feeling on the subject. It just sounded completely wrong for some reason.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Seems like keeping a horse this crafty would be more trouble than it’s worth. Even if you’re just keeping it for looks. Maybe especially then.” 

“I said eccentric, not smart,” Morley snarked. “This thing has escaped from two stables in just one day. Could be they only recently brought it to TunFaire. If it’s this good at getting out of places, it would have shown up before now.” 

That made sense. Maybe some crafty rancher had sold off this troublemaker to somebody on the Hill, neglecting to mention the measures needed to keep the thing contained. Depending on who the new owner was, I wasn’t sure the rancher was going to be enjoying their profits for very long. Not if they’d been stupid enough to screw over somebody with any real power. 

“Makes as much sense as anything, I guess.” Silence settled between us again. It was just as awkward as before.

I jumped when the horse huffed a breath over the back of my neck. I hadn’t noticed it getting so close. The sudden sensation had me leaping forward while my shoulders hiked up around my ears. An undignified yelp made its way out of me as I startled, drawing the attention of both Morley and some of the other people on the street.

I gave the horse my most venomous glare. It looked back, placid and unconcerned.

“What the  _ hell _ is with this thing?” I hissed. “First it shows up at my house, and now it keeps trying to give me a heart attack.” I rubbed the back of my neck in an attempt to sooth the goosebumps that had risen there. “I told you we shouldn’t have brought it with us.” Now that I was out of reach the horse turned its attention to Morley. I watched distrustfully as it nudged his shoulder with its nose, only stilling once Morley started petting it.

On the surface it seemed like the horse was being friendly, even well behaved. That in itself was cause enough for suspicion as far as I was concerned. Usually horses were a lot more upfront about their problems with me. The feeling was always mutual. I didn’t know how to deal with a horse that for all intents and purposes appeared to be cooperating.

“It’s pretty attached to you for some reason,” Morley commented. I’d noticed that already. I didn’t like it. “I thought you said horses were all out to get you?”

“They are. This one has to be up to something.” I gazed balefully at the thing. It was keeping pace with Morley so he could keep rubbing the underside of its jaw. “Don’t let the nice act fool you. It’s got something planned, I just know it.” 

Before leaving to see Linda Lee it had seemed like Morley was starting to believe me about horses and their species-wide vendetta against me. Now he looked less than convinced. How had a creature so big and obviously menacing managed to lull Morley into a false sense of security? 

Morley didn’t deign to reply for a moment. He just shook his head with an exasperated look on his face. “I think you need to get this irrational fear of horses checked out Garrett,” he finally said. “Get the Dead Man to look around in there, see what he can find.” I leveled a stern frown on Morley now.

“It’s a perfectly rational fear, Morley. Just because they don’t give the rest of you trouble doesn’t mean they don’t have it out for me.” Morley’s rolled his eyes so hard I expected them to get stuck. Any further discussion was put on hold as the stable came into view. 

It was definitely big enough to have housed the herd we’d seen our horse leading this morning. I remembered the stablehand who’d been running tiredly after them. I wonder how many he’d managed to wrangle so far? Any more than a third and I’d be impressed. 

The stable Saucerhead had tracked down was a wide building situated on a street corner. Bright red brick laid in a complex pattern covered the entire exterior, with a pair of carriage doors on either side of the main entrance. One set of carriage doors were already open and a different stablehand was leading a horse inside. I was pretty sure it was one of the ones from this morning.

“Ho!” I called once we were closer. The stablehand paused and glanced back. I waved. He said something to somebody inside that I couldn’t see yet and handed off the reigns to the horse he was leading. Then he turned to face us and waited as we approached. 

“Can I help you?” He eyed me and my clothes. I didn’t exactly look like the kind of people who usually kept their horses here. He looked past me and eyed Morley too with a sour look on his face. His eyes bugged when he finally looked up, and up some more, at the horse, like he hadn’t noticed it before just now.

“Yeah, you can. I think this belongs to you.” It took the guy a minute to close his mouth from where it had been gaping. He looked between me and Morley like he wasn’t sure what to think.

“Where did you find it?” he finally said. His expression was almost awed as he watched the horse nudge Morley’s shoulder again and Morley patted its nose.

“I didn’t. It found me. And it won’t leave me alone either.” The guy seemed dumbfounded by that. I was starting to get the impression that he wasn’t too bright. “You the guy in charge around here?” I got the impression that he wasn’t. Sure enough he shook his head.

“No, I’m just a stablehand,” he said.

“Then go get him, would you? I’d like to talk to him.” The guy nodded and ran off somewhere inside. Now that my eyes were adjusted I could see there were a couple more people there, stablehands too by the looks of it. One of them was the guy I’d seen this morning looking even more surprised than the one who’d just left. He’d been carrying a bucket of water and now he’d stopped in his tracks to eye the horse. 

“How’d you get that thing to let you put a lead on it?” he asked incredulously. I shared a look with Morley.

I raised an eyebrow at the stablehand. “What do you mean, how?” The guy moved his mouth without actually saying anything.

“All of us could barely get near it before!” he sputtered after minute of flapping his lips, gesturing wildly with one hand. The guy next to him nodded in agreement. “We still don’t know how it got itself and all the other horses out of their stalls!” 

The poor guy looked like he was at his wits end. I’d be a bit more sympathetic, but that was what you got for willingly surrounding yourself with horses all day.

I looked at the horse. Morley had stopped patting it and was leaning away so he could eye it too. The horse only seemed a little put out by the new degree of scrutiny. It abandoned its attempt to get more attention from Morley and turned to me instead. I couldn’t imagine ever  _ not _ being uncomfortable looking into that things eyes. 

“You sure this is the same horse?” I asked. “This one was letting a bunch of kids practically climb it earlier today.” Both the stablehands were baffled by that information. They didn’t get themselves together soon enough to say something though. The first guy was back, trailing behind a man nearly as tall as me and about fifty pounds heavier. I had no doubt that most if not all of that extra weight was muscle.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded. He took in the silent stablehands. Then me, who didn’t look like he belonged here, and Morley, who dressed sharply enough that he did. Then the horse, who’d begun nosing at the back of my head in an attempt to get me to pay attention to it. His gaze lingered on the horse. It only took a few moments for recognition to light up in his eyes.

“I think this belongs to you,” I said, my voice deadpan. I was doing my best not to let my discomfort at the horse’s proximity show. I’m sure Morley could tell that deep down I wanted nothing more than to put as much distance between me and the horse as possible. 

“I see.” That was all he said for a moment, eyes locked on the horse. Then he came closer, briefly looking at Morley again before settling on me. “I believe I owe you my thanks, Mister –?”

“Garrett,” I provided. I’d considered giving him a fake name or refusing to give him a name at all, but it isn’t like he wouldn’t be able to track me down anyway if he really tried. The damn horse loitering around outside my house not once, but twice, had made certain of that. The guy looked surprised by that and eyed me curiously, his impressive mustache wiggling on his face like a big black caterpillar. He held out his hand.

“Sten Abbings. This is my stable,” he announced as I shook his hand. His grip was just as tight as I would have expected. “Any relation to Arn Garrett?” I tried to think if I had any Garrett cousins named Arn. It sure wasn’t a name my dad’s side of the family would usually pick.

“No. Why? Who’s Arn Garrett?” Sten let go of my hand and I tried to flex it subtly. 

Sten nodded at the horse. “Because that’s the guy who owns her. That, and the two of you could pass for brothers.” Now that was surprising. And unlikely to be coincidence, given that a guy Morley had described similarly had been following me. Then during my missing time I’d had Saucehead try to follow him? The horse and this Arn Garrett character were definitely involved. 

“Huh. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of the guy.” I thought hard. Arn Garrett was probably an alias. Could he be the descendent the Avites were looking for? I had no idea what kind of abilities a demigod might have, maybe messing with people’s memories was in Avia’s wheelhouse and they’d passed that on to their kid. With us looking so similar, that might have something to do with how I’d gotten dragged into this too. 

But then why was he tailing me? The smart thing would have been to skip town. Then again, if he had erased my memory, he wouldn’t have any reason to leave, but that still didn’t explain why he was tailing me. I had even more questions than before and still no answers. Now more than ever I wanted to catch this guy who’d been tailing me and ask him some things.

“Either way, I owe you my thanks Mr. Garrett. Losing Marke here would have been bad for business, and worse for my reputation.” Marke? I glanced at the horse, who’d perked up when Sten had said the name. Guess I didn’t have to just call it “the horse” anymore. “What can I do to thank you?” Now there was a thought. An idea was already forming in my head. 

“Actually, I think I’d like to meet this Arn Garrett. Any way you could tell me where to find him?” Sten hadn’t been expecting that. His eyebrows went way up.

“Meet him?” he said. “That’s it?” I could understand his confusion. He must have been expecting me to ask for something a little more substantial, and in a normal situation I might have. 

“That’s it,” I said. Marke pushed her forehead into the middle of my back and I stumbled forward. “And take this thing back. It’s already shown up at my house twice today.” Sten nodded and waved forward the stablehand who’d gone to fetch him.

“Of course. Arn said he’d be back for the horse tomorrow, you should be able to catch him if you’re here in the morning.” The stablehand approached with no small amount of trepidation. Morley handed off the lead to him and took a step back, towards me and Sten. The guy tugged but Marke didn’t budge. I gave them some more space too and the three of us watched as the stablehand tried to coax Marke into moving.

“Anything you can tell me about Arn?” I asked Sten. Marke started to huff in agitation and all of us took a full step back.

Sten shook his head. “There’s not much I really know. He showed up about a week ago to stable the horse. Paid upfront for the whole week.” 

“So you’d never seen him before then?” Morley and I shared a glance while Sten was distracted giving the stablehands orders.

“Never. I’d have assumed that he’s a merchant or a clerk if it wasn’t for that horse.” We watched Marke as she decided she didn’t like where she was and start walking across the carriage house, dragging all three stablehands behind her. “She’s stubborn as an ox now, but she was like a puppy with Arn. She was perfectly behaved until he left.” 

“I took her to a friend who runs a stable before we found out she came from here,” I said. “He said she was some rare old breed? A doil?” One of the guys tugging on the lead gave up and ran off further into the stable. Sten looked at me and grinned.

“A Dail. Your friend has a good eye.” He turned back and eyed Marke, this time with appreciation rather than exasperation. “She’s the best example I’ve seen of the breed in almost twenty years. Most of them you find nowadays don’t have a strong enough bloodline, so they don’t look right. Marke here is probably worth a small fortune, if you can find a suitable stud and get her to cooperate.” 

As he spoke Marke nosed some tools off a workbench, heedless of the two stablehands who were left trying to dissuade her. Forget finding a stud, I didn’t think she’d stay put long enough for another horse to get near her. Either Arn didn’t know just how valuable she was, or he was rich enough that he didn’t care. 

“Really? All that for just one horse?” It was hard for me to believe that anyone was willing to pay so much for a horse. Even one that was as mind-bogglingly huge as this one. 

“Yes sir. And the foals would fetch even more if they were healthy.” Sten had that look that people got when they were looking at a goldmine in the making. I wondered if Arn would come back to find his horse stolen or spirited away come morning. I didn’t see Sten or his people having much luck with that. 

The guy who’d left earlier returned with a bucket of oats, shaking it to get Marke’s attention. Her gaze immediately zeroed in on the source of the sound. Her nostrils flared and she took a step towards him and the bucket. The stablehands trying to pull her by the lead stopped, letting the rope slip out of their hands as Marke followed after the bucket. The guy used it to lure her further into the stable, all four of them slowly passing out of sight.

“Do you know why Arn is in TunFaire? If he’s not a merchant or a clerk.” Sten was finally starting to get suspicious of all my questions, I could tell. To be fair I hadn’t exactly been subtle with that last one. 

I had all his attention though and Morley had used the opportunity to slip away unnoticed. I hadn’t even noticed when he’d left myself. I hoped that he’d snuck off to find the office, maybe he’d find something more about Arn Garrett that Sten wasn’t saying.

“No idea. I didn’t ask,” Sten told me. “I’d say old money if you ask me. He had that air about him. No idea why he’d come to TunFaire and leave a horse like that in my stable though.” So Sten had a sense of modesty. He certainly wasn’t the  _ most _ high end stable around. There were a few others that were the preferred patrons of people off the Hill. In spite of that I could see Sten hadn’t exactly done badly for himself. I was sure with any horse other than Marke his people managed just fine. 

“Thanks for letting me ask all the questions,” I said, trying to sound sheepish. “I do it for a living and it’s a little hard to turn that instinct off sometimes.” That explanation and my acting seemed like it did the trick. Sten’s expression turned a little less suspicious and he clapped me on the back hard enough I nearly fell forward. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he said as I got my balance back. “It’s the least I could do.” He finally noticed Morley was missing from his other side and looked around. “Where’d your friend wander off to?” The suspicion was slowly creeping back in.

I played dumb. “Must have gone home. He was only helping me out with the horse. Me and horses don’t get along, usually.” Apparently that was enough to satisfy him that all was well. He clapped me on the back again, though thankfully it was with less force this time.

“Alright then. I suppose I’ll be seeing you bright and early tomorrow?” Ugh. Bright and early sounded like the opposite of what I’d like. But if it got me a shot at cornering this Arn character I’d be there.

“Bright and early,” I agreed. I only grimaced a little. My face got a chuckle out of Sten, the sound coming from deep in his belly. I gave him a wave as I walked out, shoving my hands into my pockets and casually walking out of sight.

I looked around as I made my way down the street, watching for Arn. Had enough time passed between Morley trying to corner him and now for him to start tailing me again? If he was here I didn’t see him. It didn’t feel like I was being followed again either. I slipped into the mouth of an alley a few buildings away from the stable to wait for Morley.

I wasn’t waiting for very long. He must have gone out some back way and circled around because I didn’t see him leave the stable. I heard a noise behind me and whirled around to find Morley strolling down the alley from the other end.

“So where’d you run off to?” I asked him. He shrugged.

“I wanted to have a look around. Found his office.” Morley leaned on the wall opposite me and crossed his arms, looking for all the world like he hadn’t just been sneaking around.

“And?” I was being impatient, I know. But Morley usually didn’t take quite so long to get to the point. “What did you find?”

“Not much,” he admitted after a few beats of silence. “Abbings keeps records, but either he was telling the truth or he didn’t put much down about Arn Garrett on purpose.” Damn.

“Damn,” I said. 

“We’ve still got the Avites to look into,” Morley said. “Maybe this thing with Arn Garrett really is just a coincidence.” I leveled a flat look at him, did my trick. He still wasn’t impressed.

“Yeah? Then why’s he following me around?” Morley shrugged. He didn’t have any more answers than I did. I hoped the Dead Man would be able to get something out of all this. 

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, started walking. Morley fell into step beside me again as I took us down the street. This day had been a circus of ups and downs, and I was ready to call it. 


	6. Chapter 6

Mentally, I ran through my list of things I needed to do. I’d secured a promise from Linda Lee to bring some books about the Avites to me and the Dead Man. I’d exhausted the leads I had on the horse for now. I was pretty sure there was nothing else that I could reasonably use to justify putting off seeing Tinnie. I still needed to check my office for any possible leads and talk to Eleanor, but if I did that first it would be too late to go and see Tinnie by the time I was done. 

I was really looking forward to eating dinner, having a few mugs of cold beer courtesy of the Weider Brewery, and getting some quality time with my own bed. But whatever Tinnie had needed me for, it was probably important. She wouldn’t have lifted the cold shoulder she’d been giving me for anything less. 

“Guess it’s time to go see what Tinnie wants.” I glanced at Morley. “You coming along for this too?”

“It’ll be worth seeing if she remembers anything,” he said. Then he grinned. “And if she just wants to yell at you it could be entertaining.” 

“Ha ha,” I said flatly. “I’m glad to know you find my misfortune so amusing.” I was starting to think the Dead Man had put Morley up to keeping an eye on me. With the Parrot being so uncooperative he must have grabbed the first opportunity to present itself. 

On the one hand it was never bad to have Morley Dotes as backup, just in case something went very sideways and I found myself in a fight. On the other, this felt more like the Dead Man had sent him along to babysit me. That rankled. I did just fine on my own most of the time, sometimes without even the Dead Man’s help, if he’d decided to take one of his weeks long naps at an inconvenient time.

There was also the matter of the awkward air still between us. I didn’t think either of us had quite processed the events of this morning. I knew I hadn’t. Morley might have been blasé about it all when it had just happened and even now, but I all but knew that he remembered more of the night before than I did, and it didn’t seem like he was too comfortable with the answers he’d found in those memories. I didn’t want to be the nearest target if he decided somebody was at fault for it, and that that somebody was me. 

Then there was the awkwardness that lingered from when we’d left the library. I could count on one hand the times throughout the day that things _hadn’t_ been weird between us. It couldn’t go on like this, I couldn’t be looking over my shoulder all the time waiting for him to snap. 

I glanced at Morley where he was walking next to me. If he noticed me looking at him, he didn’t show it. We had a little time before we’d make it to the Tate compound. “Morley.” He noticed now. 

“Yeah?” The street we were walking on was close to deserted. It was getting pretty late, I wasn’t sure Tinnie’s cousins would even bother to tell her I was there if I went asking after her when it was already dark. At least the hour meant there wouldn’t be anybody here to listen in on our conversation.

“I think we need to talk.” Morley’s shoulders tensed up immediately at that. He kept up his unconcerned expression and forced his shoulders back down. I might not have caught it if I wasn’t paying such close attention. 

“About what? Arn Garrett? The Avites?” I let out an annoyed sigh. So he wasn’t going to make this easy for me. Good to know. 

“You know what about.” I gave him the sternest face I could manage. He still didn’t drop the act.

“I’m not sure I do, Garrett.” He leveled a sharp warning look my way. Being the kind of guy I am, I ignored the huge unsubtle sign he’d just given me to knock it off. 

“Damn it, Morley. _Fine._ We need to talk about this morning. Ring any bells?” Now he stared resolutely ahead, refusing to meet my eyes.

“I said we didn’t need to talk about it,” Morley told me. “There is nothing _to_ talk about. I don’t know why you keep bringing it up.” That had me speechless for a minute.

“Nothing to –,” I sputtered, “I think there’s a hell of a lot to talk about, Morley! Like maybe the fact that we –!” 

Morley suddenly stopped and whirled around to face me, a mix of alarm and fear on his face, and hissed, “Keep your voice down!” Needless to say I shut up immediately. I hadn’t realized just how loud I’d gotten in my indignation, but Morley was right. Just because the street seemed deserted didn’t mean I should go shouting our business for all to hear. Especially not this business. 

“Sorry,” I said softly, genuinely contrite. “But we _do_ need to talk about this. I know you’re not exactly comfortable with what all the signs are pointing to, I know I’m not –,” I pointedly didn’t mention the odd feelings I’d been having all day that may or may not have run contrary to that statement, “– but I need to know that you’re not going to freak out on me later.” 

Morley had pressed his lips into a thin line as I spoke. He started walking again without another word and I scrambled to catch up. He still wasn’t looking at me. “Morley.” 

“You don’t have anything to worry about, Garrett.” His voice was almost wry, though the severe expression and the way he’d clenched his hands into fists had me keeping a little more distance between us than I usually would. “I’m not going to ‘freak out’ on you.” 

“Alright,” I said after a minute. “Good.” 

Gradually I closed the distance between us again. His body and face were relaxed, but now his expression was shuttered and cold, unnaturally still and neutral. It was more than a little unsettling. 

“Hey,” I tried after awhile, when we were almost to Tinnie’s. Morley didn’t acknowledge me. “I’m sorry.” He looked at me from the corner of his eye. That was an improvement. “I guess maybe I’m the one who freaked out, a little.” Finally Morley looked at me. For a split second he looked so tired that some part of me balled itself up into a heavy weight that settled squarely in my chest. Then the expression was gone and he looked like the Morley I knew again: calm, self assured, his thoughts a total mystery to me. 

“Only a little?” he asked blithely. He raised an eyebrow. 

“Okay, maybe more than a little,” I conceded. Morley grinned and the part of me I was still refusing to acknowledge turned the weight in my chest into something warm, fuzzy, and floaty. 

“Alright, apology accepted,” he said. We were just a few streets away from the Tate compound now. The silence between us was back to normal, no longer filled with the awkward tension from before. Still something weighed on me, an anxiety I couldn’t quite shake.

“Hey,” I began, voice quieter than I meant for it to be. I hesitated for a second, but I’d already started talking so I made myself keep going. Morley watched me, expectant. “We’re okay, right?” 

I didn’t mean just right now. Morley might not be the best person I knew, but he was definitely the closest I had to a best friend. I was worried that this whole situation would be the final straw on the camel’s back. That after we’d dealt with Arn Garrett, the Avites, our memory loss, that he’d wash his hands of me once and for all. 

Usually in my mind I was the one on the verge of cutting ties with him, over our differing opinions on what an appropriate level of force was. I didn’t mind knocking some heads if I had to, but I generally avoided killing if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Even then I tried to find a way to weasel out of it. Morley, on the other hand, was a bonafide assassin. He had no moral hangups about putting somebody down for good if he thought them getting back up later might be bad for his health. 

You could probably put that down to his dark elf way of thinking. Their views on life and morality were a little different given how long they could live. Even half breeds like Morley could easily outlive a human. I wasn’t entirely sure how old Morley even was, for all I knew he could have been well into his hundreds.

The mental dissonance, of my personal disagreement with Morley’s opinion of acceptable casualties and how much I was beginning to realize his friendship actually meant to me, was more than a little confusing. I knew without thinking about it too hard that I’d choose Morley over my own reservations almost every time. 

I was still waiting for Morley to answer me. He was looking at me, his pace slowed enough that I had slowed down to match so I wouldn’t leave him behind. I couldn’t figure out his expression.

“Yeah, we’re okay,” Morley said, his answer just as quiet as my question. That lifted a weight from my shoulders. I let out a shaky breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding. 

“Okay.” I didn’t have anything better to say. It didn’t seem like Morley minded. The sun was getting close to setting and I picked up the pace. I’d hate to have walked all this way just to be turned away by Tinnie’s cousins. 

Then we were on Tinnie’s street. The Tate compound didn’t look like one. What it looked like was the Tate’s shop surrounded on either side by rundown buildings. In reality those buildings were a front, and behind that front was an interconnected collection of homes and apartments with a lush central courtyard, hidden right under all of our noses. Usually Tinnie came looking for me, but the reverse had been true often enough that I knew which door to knock on that was more likely to get me Tinnie instead of some other random Tate.

I approached that door, somewhere in the middle of the street. It had taken me a hell of a long time to remember which one it was with how close to identical they all were. But where there was a will, there was a way. I hoped that after the apparent urgency of earlier she be waiting for me to show. Her cousins always seemed to know when we were fighting, and they were none too friendly even when me and Tinnie were on good terms. 

I knocked, three sharp raps, and waited. Then I waited some more. Morley, who had set himself up off to one side of the door and was currently leaning on the building, gave me a look. I glanced up at the windows. There wasn’t any movement to indicate somebody taking a peek at us. I hadn’t heard any footsteps from behind the door, but I knew they were all pretty solid, so that didn’t necessarily mean nobody was there. 

I knocked again, three more raps, a little more loudly this time. Still nothing. I frowned now, started to get concerned. Where was everybody? Even if Tinnie was ignoring me, her family usually still answered the door. If for no other reason than to tell me to buzz off. Morley saw something in my expression that had him straightening up and scanning the facade himself. Maybe his eyes would catch something mine couldn’t. 

I was about to knock one more time when the door opened. It happened so suddenly, the door closed one second and flung open the next, that I nearly slammed my fist into the person who’d opened it. I narrowly avoided inadvertently punching one of the many Tates who lived here besides Tinnie and her uncle Willard. I couldn’t say I recognized this one. There were so many Tates that looked so similar that a lot of them blended together for me. This one didn’t seem too happy about my insistent knocking. 

“What do you want?” he demanded. He narrowed his eyes as if daring me to give him anything less than a matter of life and death as the reason I was darkening their doorstep. He spotted Morley and gave him the same treatment. 

“I’m here to see Tinnie.” As if that wasn’t obvious. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d come here for anything else. That answer didn’t improve this guy’s mood. 

“Why?” I was a little taken aback by that. I’d have thought Tinnie’s urgent problem had to do with her family. Maybe it did and the rest of them were willing to eat their own boots before accepting outside help. The only reason I’d been involved with the mess surrounding Denny’s will was because I’d been legally obligated to, after all. That and Willard Tate’s insistence on meeting Kayean Kronk. Otherwise they would have happily kept me as far away from their family matters as possible. 

“What do you mean why?” I said. “Tinnie showed up at my house asking to see me, that’s why.” He didn’t look convinced. What, did he think I was trying to engineer a situation to be able to work my way back into Tinnie’s good graces? Even if I’d wanted to right now it just wasn’t possible. Tinnie could be as stubborn as a mule, and she held a grudge. She wouldn’t be cozying back up to me until she was good and ready, and that usually took at least a few weeks more of being angry at me. 

I found myself less aggravated than I usually was about being on the receiving end of Tinnie’s ire when she hadn’t even told me why she was mad. It was a bad habit of hers, expecting me immediately know why she was upset with me without so much as a hint. Right now I was more aggravated with her army of cousins, specifically the one who was keeping me from even talking to her. 

“Tinnie didn’t say she went to see you. Or that she was expecting anybody,” the guy said. 

“Well go ask her then,” I told him. I may have been a slight bit more irate than I needed to be. I wanted to be home right now, not dealing with overly suspicious Tates, yet here I was. Even when we were on the outs I cared too much about Tinnie to ignore her when she might need my help. Good old White Knight Garrett, at your service. Always a sucker for a lady in need.

Tinnie’s cousin didn’t appreciate being ordered around. I gave him my most ill tempered glare, the expression sharpened by the frustrations of my day. He’d been about to give me lip, I could tell, but most of the Tates were roughly Morley’s height and not near as good at fighting as they were at making shoes. 

I had a reputation of my own, too. It wasn’t anywhere near as fearsome as Morleys, but it combined with my obviously foul mood was enough to send this Tate packing. He glared back at me, any weight it might have had robbed by the way he was half-hiding behind the door now. 

“Wait here,” he said with a sour expression. Then he disappeared into the depths of the house, closing the door behind him. I sure hoped he was actually coming back. I didn’t relish the idea of waiting around for hours when he hadn’t even gone to tell Tinnie I was here. 

I wondered why, if she’d been as insistent as Dean said, Tinnie hadn’t told somebody to expect me coming by. I could definitely see her not telling anyone she’d gone to see me though. As a rule the Tates were cautious and somebody might have insisted on an armed escort if they’d known she was planning to go somewhere. 

It took awhile before the door opened again. The person who opened it wasn’t Tinnie, or the guy who’d answered it before. I didn’t expect to see Rose here, or at least not so late. Last I heard she’d moved out. Maybe kicked out was more accurate. Her personality could be pretty grating, I knew from firsthand experience. 

Rose fixed me with a frown. “Tinnie’s upset with you.” Tell me something I didn’t know. But was this the same thing she’d been upset with me about or some other development I was similarly clueless to? 

“Word sure travels fast these days,” I said with no small amount of sarcasm. Rose didn’t really bring out the best in me, especially when I was already in a bad mood. “She say why?” 

Rose’s frown deepened instead of giving me a real answer. So no, then. Rose and Tinnie had never been all that close in spite of being first cousins, but they usually loved getting together to complain about me whenever Tinnie and I were fighting. I wondered if Tinnie was actually upset with me, or if she was maybe just upset in general. 

“No,” Rose finally admitted. “Why would you think she wants to see you?” This was getting old quick.

“Because she came to my house and asked to see me,” I deadpanned. “Dean made it sound important.” I leaned in, like maybe I could catch a glimpse of Tinnie listening from just past the door. “Where is she?” She wasn’t there of course and it just made Rose try to close the door in my face.

“I don’t know if I should let you see her,” Rose said. It wasn’t out of any genuine concern for Tinnie, I can assure you. No, Rose just held grudges even better than Tinnie did. She’d never forgiven me for first turning down her advances and then refusing to help her get a bigger chunk of her dead brother’s inheritance. She wasn’t bad looking, that was for sure. She had all the same blessings Tinnie had pulled from the Tate gene pool. The big difference was that Rose was just a genuinely unpleasant person once you got past her good looks. 

I glanced at Morley. Him and Rose had had a brief on and off fling, much like the more extended one Tinnie and I had. It had been awhile since then, but maybe he’d have better luck persuading her. With me she’d only dig her heels in deeper and outright refuse any request I might make. I couldn’t say the feeling wasn’t mutual. 

Morley just shrugged at me. Maybe things had ended more badly between them than I’d thought. Looks like I wouldn’t be getting any help from that corner. I sighed, put on my best attempt at contrition and turned to Rose. She looked back at me with a cool frown. 

“Rose, please, I just want to know what Tinnie was so worked up about earlier. Could you just tell her I’m here?” Would that be enough to appease her? I didn’t want to lay it on too thick. 

Rose considered me for a moment, the frown leaving her face as she thought. I was starting to get optimistic. Never a good thing.

“No,” she said bluntly. I wanted to growl in frustration. Just when I thought we were getting somewhere. 

“Why not?” I demanded. In a blink Rose’s face transformed into a fierce scowl, her eyes sharp and frown the deepest I’d seen it yet. 

“Because I don’t know what you did, but you hurt her, Garrett,” she snapped. “She won’t even tell me what happened.” I didn’t think I’d ever seen Rose like this. For once I could see the part of her that actually cared about somebody or something other than herself, fiercely protective and ready to tear into me if I made a wrong move. It was a pleasant surprise, weird as it was for me.

Had I done something, in the week of time I was missing? I didn’t know what to do with a Tinnie that was genuinely hurt instead of just angry at me for something I didn’t even realize I’d done. More than ever not remembering all that missing time was getting to me. 

It seemed like as soon as I’d gotten one thing resolved, another problem was there to take its place. And the number of problems was stacking way up compared to the one thing I had managed to kind of fix. There was a comfort in knowing that at least me and Morley were going to be on okay terms after this was all over.

I couldn’t dwell too long on what I might’ve done to upset Tinnie so badly. My mind would only run wild with all the worst possibilities. 

“Then why did she show up earlier? If she doesn’t want to see me, all she has to do is stay away. I’m only here because she worried Dean so much!” And he had been worried, for all that he hadn’t played it up. I’d been worried too, was even more worried now, but I sure as hell wasn't going to let Rose see that. She might have shown she cared about Tinnie but that didn’t mean I trusted her. She’d asked me to kill over Denny’s money and then hired Saucerhead to beat me down when I hadn’t danced to her tune. 

So I wore my aggravation with my entire situation like armor, to hide how scared I actually was; by what me and Morley might have done together, by the ease with which my mind had been messed with, and now by whatever I might have done to Tinnie. I didn’t think I’d harmed her physically, that wasn’t the kind of person I am. Not to mention if I had there would have already been a gang of angry Tates at my door. Knowing she was physically okay didn’t make it any better though.

Rose went red and puffed up like she was getting ready to shout me down. She never got the chance. A hand landed on her shoulder and startled the both of us, stopping her before she’d even started. 

“Tinnie,” she said, surprised. Tinnie nudged her and Rose took a few steps to the side, making room for her in the doorway. I hadn’t even seen her coming up from behind Rose, too focused on trying to convince her to let me see Tinnie. “You don’t –,” Rose started, but Tinnie cut her off. 

“It’s alright. You can go, Rose.” It didn’t look like Rose wanted to go. She opened her mouth to protest and got cut off again. “ _Rose._ Please.” Rose snapped her mouth shut. A look passed between them that I couldn’t read. It lasted for a few long seconds before Rose huffed. 

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll be upstairs.” She shot me a venomous look, a clear warning to watch my step. Then she turned and stomped away. I had no doubt she and a handful of other Tate cousins would be listening in as closely as they could manage from somewhere nearby. Once Rose had passed out of sight Tinnie turned to me. 

She was just as lovely as she ever was. Striking red hair, curves in all the right places, an attitude that said she was well aware of both those things, and a fire in her eyes. Only that fire didn’t look as bright as I remembered it being. Tinnie was putting on a brave face but I could see that there was something bothering her. It was like she was torn about something. Maybe about seeing me?

“Garrett,” she said. 

“Tinnie.” I waited for her to go on. She didn’t. She crossed her arms and chewed her bottom lip as she looked at me like she wasn’t sure what to say. I’d never known Tinnie to be shy about telling me when she was upset with me, even if she usually neglected to tell me what she was upset about. Now she wasn’t even giving me that much. Something really was up.

“Dean told me you came by earlier,” I finally said after a minute of silence. “He said you needed to talk to me. What’s up?” Tinnie chewed her lip some more, shifted her weight to her other foot and glanced away. She looked to my right, caught sight of Morley and went still. Her shoulders tensed as he gave her a polite nod. 

That was a little strange. Tinnie hadn’t ever had a problem with Morley before. Then again this discussion might be a little private to be having with such an obvious audience. Though it wasn’t like Tinnie didn’t know her family was listening in too. She frowned and looked the other way, eyes roaming over the row of buildings across the street as she thought. 

“Tinnie?” I prompted again. “Seriously, what’s going on? What, are you back to not talking to me?” That got her to look at me. She fixed me with narrowed eyes, not quite a scowl but definitely not a happy expression. At least she was feeling enough like herself to be visibly displeased with me. 

“I only wasn’t talking to you in the first place because–!” She cut herself off. It was only a rehash of an old and frequent argument from whenever we were on the outs. Not whatever was going on right now. I waited as patiently as I could for her to get her thoughts together. 

“I did need to talk to you,” she finally said. I nodded along, waiting for her to continue.

“Dean told me. What about?” Tinnie glanced at Morley. Then she glanced back inside the house. What did she want to talk about that she didn’t want Morley or her family hearing? Her family I could understand, but Morley could be discreet. I couldn’t imagine that if there was serious trouble she’d bother keeping it from him, not when I usually ended up enlisting his help anyway. 

Tinnie made up her mind and stepped out onto the stoop, shutting the door behind her. Apparently Morley hearing about whatever it was sounded like the lesser of two evils to her. She crossed her arms tight over her chest as she turned to face me again. She looked up and down the street, apparently satisfied with the lack of other people she found there. 

“I went to your house to talk to you yesterday,” she started. That had me paying real close attention. It meant that Tinnie hadn’t gotten caught up in whatever had led to me, Morley, Dean, and the Dead Man losing our memories. That meant she might be able to tell me something about what had been going on. 

“Did you?” I asked. “Talk to me, I mean?” First Tinnie gave me a look for interrupting her. Then she just looked confused. 

“Of course I didn’t, you weren’t there.” Her eyebrows furrowed and she frowned. “This is the first time we’ve talked in weeks! What are you talking about?” I hesitated for a moment. I suppose she was already angry at me for something, telling her this couldn’t make it any worse. 

So I told her – about my memory loss, about the fact that Morley, Dean, and the Dead Man couldn’t remember anything either, about the horse and Arn Garrett and the Avites. I left out the bit about how Morley and I had woken up though, only us and the Dead Man knew about that, and that was only because there was no way to keep it from him. Her eyes were wide by the time I was done telling her everything. She looked between me and Morley as understanding dawned on her face, and paradoxically she only got tenser.

“So you said I wasn’t home?” I prompted. “What else?” She blinked at me a few times. It took her a moment before she shook her head and kept going.

“No. When I got there Dean was worried. The Dead Man told me you’d been grabbed by some cult.” Grabbed by a cult?

“He say what cult it was?” I asked her. I had a hunch.

“That one you mentioned, the Church of Avia,” she said. And there it was. At least we knew they were probably the ones behind our memory loss. The only question now was what the horse and Arn Garrett had to do with it all. 

“Anything else?”

“The Dead Man said that Morley had come by before I did, and that he rushed off to help you. So I went to the Palms to see if you were there.” Tinnie stopped there and went conspicuously silent. Her eyes darted to Morley again and then away, like she couldn’t stop herself. I frowned. She was pretty clearly avoiding mentioning something.

“Why were you upset with me before?” I asked her. Tinnie steadfastly refused to look at me, frowning down at the ground as she had some kind of internal conflict.

“You were outside with someone when I got to the Palms,” she said after a minute. “You didn’t see me, but I saw you. I left before either of you could. But you don’t even remember…” Tinnie trailed off there and went back to chewing on her bottom lip.

“I was outside with someone? Who?” She was right, I didn’t remember. “And you still haven’t told me why you were angry at me.” Honestly, I was starting to get frustrated by the run around Tinnie was giving me. Would it kill her to just give me a straight answer? 

Tinnie shook her head a little, then said almost to herself, “It doesn’t matter that you don’t remember, you still did it.” 

“What did I do, Tinnie!” I felt like pulling my hair out. Surely it would be less aggravating than this. But Tinnie shook her head with more finality this time.

“I’m sure you and the Dead Man are figuring out how to get your memories back. We can talk about this when you do.” She turned around and opened the door.

“Tinnie!” I protested. Tinnie didn’t pause until she nearly had the door closed, only her face still visible.

“I mean it Garrett. I don’t want to have to explain to you what you did.” For her part Tinnie looked genuinely upset, just like Rose had said. There was still some inner conflict in her expression as she closed the door practically in my face.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the last chapter I have finished and ready to go. I'm working on the next one, but without the time crunch of NaNo and with irl stuff keeping me busy it might not be done before next week. Not to worry though, this fic WILL get finished, even if I break my current updating schedule!
> 
> The way things are shaping up there's going to be at least 9 chapters, possibly 10, so we're definitely in the home stretch!

I stared at the door Tinnie had shut for a long moment that felt like an eternity in my head. Morley hadn’t said anything the whole time we’d been here. Did he remember even more now? Was that why he was being so quiet? I didn’t like being the only one out of the loop. 

A glance revealed him to be in much the same situation I was – confused and wondering just what Tinnie had been talking about. He looked like he might have some ideas though, which was more than I had. None of the few possibilities I could come up with were things I wanted to consider might be true. 

I shook my head and took a step back from Tinnie’s door. We weren’t going to get anything else from her, and probably not from any of the other Tates either. The movement reminded me of the rope with the wooden cubes I’d confiscated from the Parrot, swinging around where it sat inside of my jacket pocket. I eyed the sun where it was starting to get low in the sky. I didn’t know how late my next stop would be taking visitors. Regardless, it was better to be early than late. 

I gave the Tate compound one last look before I turned and walked away. I didn’t try to kid myself into thinking I’d seen movement at one of the windows. I couldn’t spare any thought for the odd situation with Tinnie right now, it would just have to wait until I’d dealt with the rest of this. 

It took a minute before I heard Morley catching up to me. He took up the same position beside me, keeping pace. Both of us were too wrapped up in our own thoughts at first to say anything. It wasn’t until we’d passed the turn I’d take to go home from Tinnie’s that he spoke up.

“Where are we off to now?” he asked me. We’d left the neighborhood the Tate compound was in and passed both my own neighborhood and the Safety Zone. 

I patted the outside of my jacket, where the pocket with the rope and blocks was. “I need to find out just what this is. So, I’m going to see Handsome.” Morley looked a little uneasy at that. I could understand the feeling, but for me it was tempered by the almost grandmotherly role Handsome had played in my childhood. It was harder for me to be genuinely afraid of her like some people were. 

“You don’t have to come,” I offered. I could see him seriously considering it. Part of me definitely didn’t want to be left alone with her, even confident as I was that she didn’t want to do me harm. Handsome could be awfully intimidating for a woman well over a hundred. Another part of me just didn’t want Morley to leave. I squashed that part down as hard as I could.

“No, I’ll go with you,” Morley finally said. “She might have something that can help us remember.” That squashed down part made an immediate recovery when he said that. I found myself annoyingly chipper at the prospect. I did my best to keep a neutral face and not let any of it show. 

“Alright. Just don’t do anything to make her mad.” Morley snorted at that.

“Isn’t that my line?” I rolled my eyes, but even I had to admit he had a point. I was an expert at putting my foot in my mouth in the worst situations for it. My tumultuous relationship with Tinnie was proof enough of that. The numerous bruises and broken bones over the years were just more examples of times I would have done well to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t have a reputation as a smartass for nothing, I suppose.

It was nice to still have this easy back and forth with Morley. That was something I was glad hadn’t changed. I wondered if it had always put this much of a bounce in my step, or if that was just the function of the relief after such a stressful day. 

When we were nearly to the street Handsome’s shop was on, something made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I didn’t slow my pace or look around. Somebody was following us. I wondered if it was Arn Garrett, or if that wasn’t the identity of my tag along from earlier, whoever he was. Morley had caught on too, probably even a little before I had. He glanced at me from the corner of his eye, raising an eyebrow in question. 

“You think we can catch him?” I asked quietly, but not so quietly that it would seem odd to our tail. 

“No, I don’t,” Morley answered. “He completely disappeared last time, we’re not dealing with some amateur that we can easily trap on the fly.” He glanced at me again. “What do you want to do?” I thought.

“We let him follow us,” I settled on. “It’s not like we’re trying to be stealthy, here. Maybe Handsome will have something to help with that.” She’d given me something to avoid being followed last time I’d gone to see her, I bet she could give me something that would help us catch our ever elusive follower. 

The tail was on us the entire time it took to get to the alley Handsome’s shop was in. I never got a good look at them. I’m not sure if Morley did, but I’d wager he hadn’t either. Every time I thought I’d be able to catch a glimpse of them, it was like they knew what I was thinking and pulled back. 

Then it occurred to me that maybe they could. The thought sent an uncomfortable prickle across my back. That kind of thing wasn’t impossible, the Dead Man did it literally all the time. Not to mention somebody had already been mucking about in my head. There was no telling what they’d done to me and Morley besides the memory loss. 

We turned into the alley and started picking our way through the trash. I actually wasn’t entirely sure Handsome’s shop would be here. It has an odd habit of appearing and disappearing as it pleases. Once I’d come by to find a blank section of brick where the entrance should have been. But there it was, the same worn door as always. I knocked before trying to open it. It always paid to be polite to witches and sorcerers, they could be a moody bunch on a good day.

Inside, the shop was the same too. Dimly lit with shelves full of books and odds and ends. I didn’t know if Handsome ever cleaned up in here. Probably not. That ancient cat was sitting on the counter, looking ratty and half dead. Looks like it was having one of its better days. I didn’t see Handsome anywhere so she must have been in the back. 

“Handsome?” I called out. “You here?” Morley edged over to examine a shelf. He didn’t turn his back to the room and kept glancing up to make sure he didn’t get snuck up on. I took a few steps towards the counter and the cat cracked its eyes open a sliver. It stared at me with way too much of a knowing gaze. I didn’t like this cat any more than the strays Dean tried to bring in. The cat shut its eyes and ignored me once it decided I wasn’t worth its time. 

There was no response from Handsome and I couldn’t hear her moving around in the back room. I stepped up to the counter and leaned over it well away from the cat, squinting to try and see through the curtain of beads that led further into the building. It was too dark to see anything that might have been there. “Hello?” I called again.

“Stop all that shouting, Garrett. And don’t touch that Morley.” Morley and I both jumped at the unexpected sound of Handsome’s voice right behind us. I swear Morley nearly hit the ceiling he jumped so high, and the small wooden carving he’d been looking at wobbled as his elbow bumped its shelf. I leaned on the counter for support as I turned, clutching my chest over my rapidly beating heart. 

I hadn’t heard her come through the front door. More importantly Morley hadn’t heard her come through the front door either, quite a feat given his amazing hearing. Handsome stood just inside the doorway with a basket of vegetables hanging from one arm. She was quicker than I’d ever seen her before when she made her way past us and behind the counter. Handsome shuffled into the back room, muttering to herself all the while, voice low enough that I couldn’t make it out. Morley shot me an accusatory look like it was my fault she’d snuck up on us. Only now did I realize that Handsome had called him by name too. I gave him a look of my own.

“What do you want?” Handsome demanded as she came back into the room. The bead curtain clattered around her and she was back to moving at her regular pace. I don’t think I’d ever understand how she or the cat were so old and still kicking. She’d already been ridiculously old when I was a kid. I just assumed at this point that she might never really die. Like the Dead Man but still moving around. I thought the cat might have actually died at some point and Handsome had just refused to let it go. 

“Nice to see you too.” I couldn’t help the sarcasm. It was a blessing and a curse. Handsome pinned me with a no nonsense glare and I snapped to attention out of habit. I’d better get to the point before she really got annoyed. “I wanted to know what you thought of something,” I told her. She waited for me to dig the rope and wood out of my pocket and leaned in close after I laid it on the counter. She squinted at it for a minute, then picked it up to turn it over in her hands.

“Where did this come from?” she asked without looking up. She examined one of the gouges in the wood from T.G.P’s beak. 

“My house,” I explained. “I found it in my front room when I came home. The Parrot got ahold of it and didn’t want to let go.” Handsome hummed in thought. She grabbed the rope by each end and stretched it out on the counter. “Any idea what it is?” 

She snorted derisively. “It’s a piece of rope looped through wood. Did you really need to bother me for something as simple as that?” Now I was confused.

“The Dead Man said there was something weird about it,” I told her. “He couldn’t read the Parrot while it had the rope.” Now Handsome looked a little more interested. She looked the rope over again, mumbling to herself and pausing at intervals as she did. This examination took longer than the first one, but I waited patiently for her to finish. No one rushed Handsome. 

Morley had taken up position behind me, ostensibly looking over another shelf but very carefully keeping me between him and Handsome. I wondered at the history there. I didn’t know how old Morley was, what with the way the majority of elf breeds aged, but there was a chance she’d been an old woman when he was a kid too. He was certainly acting similar to the way I had, the first time I’d come back to see her after getting home from the Cantard; cautious, expecting a verbal lashing for being back in TunFaire for so long without coming to so much as give her the time of day.

Finally Handsome set her hands on the countertop and straightened, turning her cataract afflicted eyes on me. “You said you found this in your home?” she asked.

“Yeah. What is it?” I braced for something sinister. I hoped I hadn’t done something stupid, carrying it around with me up until now. That would be just my luck, for the smarter option to have been leaving it at home. Hindsight and all that.

“It’s just a piece of rope threaded through some wood,” she told me again. I opened my mouth to ask her if she was sure, but she stopped me with a glare. “But you are correct, it isn’t normal rope and wood.” Morley had given up the pretense of being occupied and turned to peek around me at Handsome. “It was created, not made.” I saw Morley tense up from the corner of my eye but I frowned in confusion.

“What? How is one of those different from the other?” I asked. I felt like an idiot, the way Handsome looked at me for that, but she took mercy on me and explained.

“Your clothes are made. That knife Morley carries around is made. Their materials are harvested or mined and used by people to make them. This,” she gestured to the rope, “Was created entirely from magic. Brought into existence exactly as it is by the will of a skilled sorcerer.”

I got it now. Conjuring physical items was an immensely powerful, and difficult, kind of magic. I’d only ever heard of sorcerers using it to create very simple things, and only back when Karenta had been on a winning streak and flush with silver. It was so difficult to do that it was impractical for almost anything, especially when you could just buy what you needed so much more easily. Especially if you were a sorcerer who was powerful enough to conjure something in the first place. I’d only ever heard stories from the Dead Man about sorcerers in TunFaire who could manage it, all of his examples long dead.

“Why would someone bother conjuring this?” I asked incredulously. “And it’s completely normal besides that?” 

Handsome nodded. “Yes. The fact it was conjured is the only significant detail. That is likely why your Loghyr found it odd. Perhaps even why it interfered with his abilities.” It just didn’t make any sense. I scratched the back of my head as I tried to think of why somebody would do something so difficult for so little payoff. And to leave it in my house? Was it a message? That they were powerful enough to conjure something and they could come and go as they pleased? But there were so few sorcerers in TunFaire already, they’d basically named themselves by doing this. Plus my memories had already been messed with. 

I just couldn’t figure out who would go to this much trouble or why. I did grimace at the greasiness of my hair. I really needed a bath tonight. 

“So that’s it, somebody made this just because they could, and left it at my house?” I wondered aloud and shook my head. 

“Be glad it isn’t cursed,” Handsome told me. She had a point with that. But at least if it was cursed I’d know why someone put it in my house.

“Thanks,” I said. “I don’t suppose you know anything about recovering missing memories?” Handsome narrowed her eyes at me.

“What are you on about boy?” I gave her a much abridged version of what I’d told Saucerhead and Tinnie. It felt like I’d never be done repeating it all, that I’d just have to keep doing it over and over again. Handsome put one boney, wrinkled hand to her chin and thought.

“Wait here,” she ordered. She went shuffling off to the back room at what seemed like a snail’s pace. I could hear her moving around back there, and a few times I heard the crash of something made of wood or metal hitting the ground. The cat leapt up at the first one and raced off into the depths of the shop. I reared back to avoid being run over just in time. That thing sure moved quick for being so old. A moment later the noise in the back room stopped and Handsome came back out, carrying something in the palm of one hand.

“Take this,” she told me, motioning for me to hold my hand out. I did and she dropped a pair of little stone disks into my hand. They each had a little carving of a maze on one side, the other smooth and blank. They hung from two black and white braided cords, clearly meant to be worn. Handsome was bending down behind the counter by the time I was done examining them. She came back into sight holding the cat and set it down on the countertop, where it reclaimed its spot. 

“What does this do?” I asked. I turned the necklaces over in my hand. They almost tingled.

“Wear them. They should keep your minds from being tampered with further, but it won’t do much to help recall your lost time.” She settled onto the stool she kept back there and finally leveled her gaze on Morley. “I hear you being quiet over there. Nothing to say for yourself?” Morley had plastered his neutral expression to his face again.

“No ma’am,” he said. “Thank you for the help.” Ma’am? I had some questions for him, once we were out of here. I didn’t see Morley being happy to answer them, but I’d manage. Him and Handsome stared each other down for a few moments before she huffed and shook her head. She waved the both of us off with a shooing motion.

“Go on then. I have things to do besides deal with your problems.” I handed one of the necklaces to Morley and nodded.

“Thanks again,” I said. Handsome didn’t reply other than shooing me once more with an annoyed expression. Morley and I left as fast as we could without running. 

Once we were back outside and out of the alley I took another look at the necklace. It didn’t look like much now either. Just stone and leather cord. I did realize that the base of the medallion was a flat, near perfectly round river stone, now that I had it in better light. That explained why it was so perfectly smooth. Even the edges of the carved maze and the hole bored through the stone were even and rounded. I wondered, not for the first time, how Handsome always managed to have just what I needed. It was a useful skill to have and I wished I had it too. 

I’d started walking back home without thinking but Morley was still following me. I raised an eyebrow at him after I slid the necklace on and tucked it into my shirt so it was out of sight 

“So how do you know Handsome?” I asked him. Morley looked annoyed by the question.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said. Now wasn’t that evasive?

“I grew up near here,” I explained. “Known her since I was a kid. What about you?” It wasn’t a secret that I’d lived in TunFaire all my life. You could probably track down the house I grew up in without too much trouble either. Morley wasn’t too happy that his attempt to evade my question hadn’t worked. 

“Does it matter?” he asked, sounding like he’d already resigned himself to answering. 

I shrugged. “Probably not.” We walked in silence for a few minutes as Morley thought about whether or not he wanted to answer. 

“We’re probably related,” he finally said. Now there was an answer I hadn’t been expecting.

“Like how you’re probably related to Doris, Marsha, and Dojango?” I couldn’t help but interject. Morley gave me a pointed look but didn’t dignify what I’d said with a comment.

“We think she’s something like a cousin,” he continued. “Far enough back that nobody’s really sure. The Dotes’ never had much concern with recording family lines.” I understood that. I myself had a number of cousins who might or might not be blood relations, with any grandparents or great-grandparents who might have been able to tell you long dead. Nobody but the richest people on the Hill really kept track of that stuff. 

“Huh.” Eloquent, Garrett. At least Morley didn’t seem offended. It got me thinking about Arn Garrett. Maybe he really was a relative, just one I’d never heard of. I don’t know how that would relate to the tangled web of everything else I knew. 

We didn’t make it back to the house until after dark. At least there was no sign of the horse this time. Looks like Sten and his people had finally figured out how to keep Marke contained. I wondered what kind of name ‘Marke’ was for a mare. It had to have some meaning to Arn even if it didn’t to me. 

Dean was ready and waiting to let us in. I could smell the delectable scent of dinner wafting from the kitchen. Personally, I was ready to eat then and there, but the Dead Man had other plans.

_ What have you learned since you left? _

Not even a hello. He must really be getting into it. He’d somehow had his memory tampered with too though, and I wasn’t entirely sure how that worked. 

“I’ve learned lots,” I told him. “Can this wait?” 

_ I do not believe that would be wise. Unless you have completely solved our mystery?  _

He knew I hadn’t. I grumbled to myself under my breath and trudged into the Dead Man’s room. Morley tagged along and took a seat in the chair from earlier. 

_ Now, tell me what you’ve found. _

I sighed and took my usual seat. I covered mine and Morley’s talk with Linda Lee, who had apparently already been by an hour before I’d gotten home to drop off the whopping total of two books with information about Avia and the Avites. Evidently she had stayed for a little while to read the relevant sections to the Dead Man and then taken them back with her. I went on to cover my meeting and conversation with Sten Abbings. The Dead Man was very interested to hear what I thought about Arn Garrett. 

_ You believe Arn Garrett may be the descendent of Avia? _

“Might be. I don’t know why he’d still be in town, if he is and he’s also the one who messed with our heads. Or why him or his horse would be following me.” I slumped in my chair, exhausted. I’d been all over TunFaire today without much of a break. Morley at least had a couple hours that I assume he’d spent at the Palms, probably holed up in his office, before he’d tracked me back down. “I’d hoped you might be able to make sense of it. But I’m not done yet.” 

I could feel the Dead Man perk up. It was weird, being able to get a sense of emotion from a corpse. I told the Dead Man about my conversation with Tinnie and how cagey she’d been. Then I finished the whole thing off with the explanation Handsome had given me for the rope and the medallions she’d given me and Morley. 

_ I see. _

That was it? “What, no theories? Come on, Chuckles, share with the class.” I was counting on him to pull his weight like he should. He was more directly involved in this that he usually was in my problems, after all.

_ I have a theory, yes. However, exposing either of you to it before I am more certain may be more hindrance than help. _

Why was it every time I really needed him to carry his weight, he weaseled out of it? Of all the Loghyr to have died here in TunFaire for me to find four hundred years later, it had been the one who was even lazier than I was.

_ In the meantime, make use of the witch Handsome’s gift. Are you wearing it now? _

“Yeah.” The stone was cold and heavy on the bare skin of my chest. It lay tucked underneath my shirt, small and flat enough that you couldn’t see the tiny lump under the fabric. I could feel the Dead Man prodding at my mind then. Instead of the usual, it felt almost muffled. I saw Morley flinch from the corner of my eye as I assumed the Dead Man checked him over too.

_ Excellent. I believe this will be an effective enough defense until we know more. If you would return the conjured rope, I would like to examine it again. _

I dug the rope out of my pocket and put it back on the shelf. “If that’s all, I’m gonna go eat. I’m starved.” I wanted to know what was going on, what the big picture was, don’t get me wrong. But I’d been running back and forth across the city all day and worked up a pretty sizable appetite. 

_ I have no more questions. You and Mister Dotes may attend to whatever business you have. Meet this Arn Garrett tomorrow and determine if he is as involved as you believe him to be. _

“Sure thing,” I said over my shoulder, already out the door and on my way to the kitchen. Morley didn’t immediately follow me out. It felt odd after having him at my back practically all afternoon. He must have been talking to the Dead Man about something.

I had heaped a plate full of food and was well on my way through my second mug of beer by the time Morley came out. I could tell he wanted to comment on my unhealthy habits now that he was faced with both my love of beer and zealous appreciation of red meat first hand. He kept whatever he might have wanted to say to himself though. I appreciated the consideration. 

“You coming with me to meet Arn Garrett tomorrow?” I asked once I’d washed down a mouthful of roast with a generous gulp of Weider's dark. 

“I was planning on it,” he said. Dean appeared and set a covered casserole dish on the table unprompted. I hadn’t even noticed him come back in. He set out another place setting and when Morley started to protest he uncovered the dish, letting loose the mouthwatering smell of slow roasted vegetables. Even I could appreciate how good it smelled, and I didn’t have the appreciation for vegetables that Morley did. 

Whatever excuse he’d been about to make to get himself out of eating Dean’s cooking died before he had a chance to get it out. As if he’d been waiting for this opportunity, and he definitely had if I was being honest with myself, the Dead Man spoke up.

_ Perhaps you should stay for dinner, Mister Dotes? _

I hid my suspicious frown by taking another sip of my beer. The Dead Man was up to something. He must have had a hand in Dean making something that so clearly catered to Morley specifically. It wasn’t the kind of thing Dean would have made on his own without prompting. But why was the Dead Man trying to get Morley to hang around longer? Something to do with the theory he wouldn’t share? I could see Morley trying to resist, but it was a battle he was losing. 

“I guess I don’t need to get back just yet.” Morley slid into the seat across from me and fixed himself a plate of the roasted vegetables. 

_ I can assure you that the Palms has run smoothly in your absence. Your nephew is particularly pleased to see Mr. Big.  _

Huh. I’d thought it was kind of quiet around here. The Dead Man must have been using the Parrot to do some searching of his own. I wondered again why he was doing his damnedest to convince Morley to stay here. 

Morley hummed in response to the Dead Man’s statement as he speared some pieces with his fork and took a bite. He chewed slowly and closed his eyes, savoring the flavor. I understood completely, Dean was a phenomenal cook. I’d yet to eat something he made that didn’t taste amazing. When Morley opened his eyes again there was a calculating gleam to them as he looked at Dean. I was immediately able to tell he was thinking of how he could convince Dean to come work for him at the Palms.

“You can’t have Dean,” I told Morley, only part way joking. “Not unless you marry one of his nieces.” Dean whipped his head around to look at me from where he was washing dishes, aghast. What a liar, acting like he couldn’t be bought. Like he hadn’t tried to foist one of those nieces off on me more times than I was able to count. Morley just snorted a laugh, covering his mouth with his hand. Why the hell was getting a laugh out of Morley so satisfying all of a sudden?

“That’s a shame,” he said once he’d swallowed. “I could use a cook like him at the Palms.” What did I say? Morley may have been one of TunFaire’s best bone breakers, but he was a businessman too. As far as I knew right now he didn’t have an actual cook and was only making do with Puddle and Sarge. I didn’t think he trusted Spud in the kitchen, I’d only seen him around doing things like busing tables and taking orders. 

“I’m quite happy working for Mister Garrett,” Dean said. There was a certain snideness to his words that I was sure Morley had caught too. I gave Dean a warning frown but he was too busy stiffening in surprise and blinking at nothing to notice it. I recognized it as the look he got when the Dead Man was talking to him. Dean had never liked it when the Dead Man spoke directly into his head. I wondered what the Dead Man was telling him. I especially wanted to know what he was saying when Dean’s expression turned contrite. 

Morley had ignored Dean’s attitude, used to it by now, and missed the signs of his conversation with the Dead Man entirely. “That’s a shame,” was all he said, then he went back to eating. The silence stretched as we ate, but it was far from uncomfortable. The exhaustion was finally starting to hit me. I’d gotten up to more today than I usually did when I wasn’t working a case. The more I ate, the heavier my eyes got, and soon I was yawning as I tried to finish my plate. 

_ You should get some rest Garrett. You must rise early to catch this Arn Garrett, and I will have more work for you once you do. _

“What are you, my mother?” I grumbled. It was mostly to myself. The Dead Man was right, and I was tired. I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to keep my eyes open. “Fine.” I shook my head to wake myself up and stood. Dean started clearing my plate and mug away, and Morley’s plate was already gone when I looked. Dean had gotten him a mug of tea at some point when I wasn’t paying attention. 

I thought again about why the Dead Man might want to keep Morley here. Was he expecting trouble? I would have thought he’d let me know if he was. I didn’t think he needed Morley here to deal with it either. But then there was probably a pretty powerful sorcerer around, dangerous enough that he’d been able to mess with the Dead Man once already. And me and Morley had been given safeguards against any further mental tampering by Handsome, so having both of us here in case the culprit showed back up was smart. 

For some reason that didn’t feel like that was why the Dead Man wanted Morley here. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but it didn’t. Not to mention all the private conversations they’d been having. I was completely out of the loop on whatever was going on there. I wondered if it had something to do with me. There was just no way of telling right now, not as tired as I was. My mind was already giving me grief for doing so much thinking when I could be asleep in bed.

Morley drained the last of his tea and stood too. “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he told me. His words seemed pointed, but not like it was directed at me. I felt a ripple of frustration from the Dead Man. It must have had something to do with their last talk.

_ Dean. See Mister Dotes to the door, if you would? _

He sounded almost petulant, not a tone I would normally expect to hear from him. Why the hell was he so moody? I followed Dean and Morley out of the kitchen, parting ways when we got to the stairs.

“Remember Morley, bright and early,” I muttered. I knew he’d catch the words, quiet though they were. Having elf ears must have been nice.

“I’m not the one who regularly sleeps in until noon,” he shot back breezily, half out the door. I gave him an exaggerated roll of my eyes and continued upstairs while Dean shut the door behind him and locked up. My bed was calling my name now, and I was powerless to resist it.


	8. Chapter 8

Waking up was a much more gradual process this time. There was no early morning sunlight assaulting my eyes, the curtains pulled over my window preventing just such a discomfort. My bed was familiar and warm and I relished the fact that I was in it at all. I considered putting off my plans for the day and just sleeping in instead. Without thinking I reached for the other side of my bed, only to find myself oddly disappointed at first when there wasn’t a warm body there waiting for me. 

Then I realized the body I’d been subconsciously expecting hadn’t been Tinnie’s. The body I’d expected had been thinner, with more muscle than curve. That had me jolting upright in bed. For a minute my eyes darted around the room in a panic, like I’d inexplicably find Morley there, somehow already knowing the direction my half-awake mind had gone in. I realized how ridiculous that was once I’d calmed down. With a sigh I dragged myself out of bed, forced to meet the day. 

I dressed before I trudged downstairs. Sten had said bright and early after all, so I’d need to leave after I finished eating. Dean looked surprised to see me up so early. I didn’t exactly make a habit of keeping these kinds of hours unless I absolutely had to. 

_ Good morning, Garrett. _

I jumped, startled. The panic from earlier had left me a little edgy, I didn’t usually react to the Dead Man so much. 

“Morning,” I said. I sat myself at the kitchen table and heaped a generous portion of sausage onto my plate. Dean really was a blessing when it came to food. God only knows what kind of things I’d have to eat if I ever had to fend for myself for longer than a few weeks again. 

_ Did you sleep well?  _

“Well enough.” I pondered whether or not the Dead Man had noticed my panic earlier. If he had, I wondered if he knew what it was about. Sometimes he left me a little privacy, particularly when I was upstairs. I imagined he didn’t want to stumble onto something in my head that neither of us wanted him to see. 

_ Be cautious when you go to meet this Arn Garrett. We still do not know what role he plays in all this, if any. _

“Pretty sure we’ve ruled out his being involved as just a coincidence,” I said. “What are the odds of this guy just happening to be following me around yesterday? Or why I had Saucerhead try to follow him before?”

_ I will admit, his presence being a coincidence is unlikely at this juncture, but I still have yet to entirely rule it out. Coincidence or not, caution is your best defense presently. Do you have what the witch Handsome gave you? _

What kind of question was that? Last time I’d gotten Handsome’s help it had been the one thing to save my bacon. At least until Morley had shown up with his boys, and Saucerhead and Winger. Not that them showing up would have mattered much if I’d been dead already. I had no doubt what she’d given me this time would be any less useful. 

“Of course I have it,” I told him through a mouthful. I was insulted he thought I’d forget it, honestly. Dean gave me a dirty look when doing so sent little bits of partially chewed sausage flying across the table. I shut up and got back to eating. 

Breakfast went quicker than I’d like, but I needed to get over to the stable before Arn did. I wanted to be ready and waiting when he showed up to get his horse, so he’d have no option of running away if he really cared about getting it back. Morley wasn’t waiting for me when I stepped outside. I assumed he’d meet me there, or was already there himself, so I got to walking.

The walk was a little more eventful this time around, if only because it was that time of day when everybody thought they should be out and about enjoying the good weather. The humans rights activists from yesterday were notably absent, not that I was complaining. My street saw a lot of traffic from other races so I was betting they’d felt less than welcome. Not that it had stopped them from camping out here for most of yesterday. 

When I made it to the Abbings stable it was in chaos. I assumed Marke had staged another breakout, because about five stablehands were busy wrangling close to seven horses up and down the street. I stopped on the other side of the road from the stable, watching as men chased horses who gleefully scampered away, relishing the chaos they wrought. Seemed to me like more people should take a page out of my book and not deal with the awful beasts at all. 

Morley sidled up on my right side and I just barely managed not to jump. I was getting better at it. We both stood and watched the commotion for a minute in silence. 

“Alright,” I said as a stablehand lost his grip on a rope and the horse he’d been leading immediately took the opportunity to trot away. “Let’s go.” Morley and I made our way across the street and up to the same carriage doors as yesterday, open again so the horses could be led back inside. Nobody was around. I looked down at Morley. 

“You remember where Sten’s office is?” I asked. He nodded and took the lead.

“Yeah. This way.” Morley took us through a door that led deeper into the stable, taking an immediate right and leading me down a hallway. A few feet down it was an open door, and once we’d reached it I could see Sten inside, standing by a desk and shuffling through a stack of papers on it. He didn’t notice us at first so I gave the door a light rap with my knuckles. He looked up, his expression harried.

“Garrett.” He didn’t seem to be in a very good mood. I imagined having multiple horses get loose for the second day in a row had something to do with it.

“Sten,” I greeted. “I see you’ve had another break out. Arn Garrett’s horse again?” 

Sten nodded, straightening from where he’d been leaning over the desk. “Marke got herself out of her stall again. I can’t figure out how she keeps doing it.” He sounded exceptionally aggravated. I didn’t think he was considering spiriting Marke away for himself anymore. “She opened ten other stalls before somebody found her.” Sten looked like he’d have a few gray hairs before this was all over with.

“Sounds like a real troublemaker. Arn Garrett show up yet?” Sten set aside the papers he’d been holding and shook his head.

“Not yet. He should be here soon though.” Sten strode towards us and we moved out of his way. “You can wait with Marke and keep an eye on her for me. I need all my men to catch the last of the horses she let out.” I didn’t like the sound of that. I had planned on never having to be near that horse again. It didn’t seem like a smart move to refuse though.

“Sure thing,” I told him. He took us through the stable proper, passing both empty stalls and ones occupied by much more normal horses. Marke’s stall was at the far end, one of the largest Sten must have had, with one of the stable hands from yesterday sitting on a stool by the stall door. He was eyeing Marke through the bars of the upper half of the door, frowning.

“Go help with the loose horses,” Sten told him. The guy jumped, evidently not having heard us come up behind him. He stood up and watched me and Morley curiously. He looked like he wanted to ask what we were doing back here.

“Yes sir,” he said instead once he saw the no nonsense expression on Sten’s face. He left the way we’d come, casting sidelong glances at me and Morley as he passed. 

“Just make sure she doesn’t get out again,” Sten told me. “I’ll send someone back to get you and the horse once Arn’s here.”

I nodded. “Got it.” Sten gave me a sharp nod back and followed the stablehand. I could hear him shouting orders in the distance once he was out in the carriage house. I looked at the stall the horse was in. She was staring at me through the bars of the door, looking forlorn. I didn’t like that I felt a sudden pang of sympathy. The damn thing was trouble, I wasn’t going to feel sorry for her. I grabbed the stool, dragging it away from the stall and against the opposite wall so I could sit and have a good view of the stable. I’d see anybody coming as soon as they rounded the corner that led out of the stable and to the street.

Morley strolled up to the door, looking Marke over. She switched her attention to him now, trying out her kicked puppy eyes on him instead. She didn’t have any more luck with Morley than she had with me. 

“You think Arn Garrett’s actually going to show?” Morley wondered. I shrugged, not that he could see it.

“Sten said she’s valuable,” I said. “Playmate said the same thing, that she’s a rare breed in good shape. I don’t think even some rich kid off the hill would walk away from as much money as she’s worth. Even if she’s this much trouble to keep contained.” I wondered myself how she’d managed to escape twice now. As far as I could tell that stall door was totally secure. I didn’t see how she’d have been able to open it from the inside. 

Could someone have been letting her out? But who, and why? Morley shook his head, shifting his weight almost like he was uneasy about something. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “Something feels weird.” I knew what he meant. I couldn’t quite pin it down, but something felt off. It wasn’t really an ominous or alarming feeling. I didn’t know how to explain it. The back and palm of my left hand tingled. There was nothing there when I looked, but the feeling persisted. I reassured myself by touching the medallion through my shirt.

We’d been waiting for maybe fifteen minutes when we heard footsteps approaching. Morley had started pacing after announcing his weird feeling, and now he stopped and leaned on the wall next to Marke’s stall. He may have looked relaxed but I knew he was tense and ready to leap into violence the moment it became necessary. 

It was just one person who rounded the corner, a stablehand we hadn’t seen before. I thought he might have been one of the guys outside catching horses. He slowed as he came around the corner and saw us, cautious of the fact that he didn’t recognize me or Morley. I leaned forward, put my hands on my knees and pushed myself to my feet.

“Arn Garrett finally here?” I asked him. He hesitated for a moment.

“Yeah,” he told me, glanced at Morley.

“Great. His horse is right here.” I jabbed my thumb at the stall. “You should get a rope on that thing before it goes walk-about again.” I started walking and brushed past him to round the corner. I could hear Morley behind me, and once we were past the stablehand he was next to me. The guy watched us go, clearly a little confused, but I heard him grabbing gear a moment later and opening the stall behind us. 

Things were back to normal outside. All the horses Marke had freed were wrangled and tucked away in their stalls. Sten was standing by the double doors that led outside, and there next to him was who I assumed to be Arn Garrett. He was a dead ringer for the description Morley and Saucerhead had both given me. Barely as tall as Morley, thin and willowy, red hair just a shade off from my own. He was chatting with Sten, grinned a slightly lopsided smile at something he’d said, and Morley sucked in a shocked breath beside me.

I looked over to find him staring at Arn wide-eyed. Had he remembered something? I was about to ask what was up when the thundering of hooves sounded behind us. We weren’t in or near the doorway leading back to the stalls, but Morley and I both jumped out of the way as a huge black blur came roaring out of the stable proper. It took a second for my brain to catch up with my eyes and realize it was Marke, barreling towards Sten and Arn. 

I opened my mouth to shout a warning but it would have been too late anyways. Thankfully, it turned out to be unnecessary. Marke somehow managed to slow down and completely stop right before she would have trampled them, instead happily dancing in place and tossing her head to and fro. Arn laughed aloud at her, reaching up to grab her by the snout. Marke let herself be pulled down to his level, pushing her forehead into his chest hard enough to have made anyone stumble, but Arn didn’t budge an inch. I was sure now more than ever that he was the descendent of Avia that the Avites were looking for. 

“I can’t tell you how much trouble she’s been,” I heard Sten tell him. “Got out of her stall at least five times, set loose some of the other horses two of those.” Even as he espoused her evil deeds, Sten looked at that horse with clear appreciation, much like Playmate had. “You sure I can’t convince you to breed her? I’ve got a few stallions that would be a good match.” 

Arn shook his head, petting Marke’s cheek as he chuckled. “I’m sure. I don’t think any of them could handle her.” He grinned knowingly at her, like there was a joke there that only he was privy to. “I did try to warn you about her, though. She’s very smart.” Sten shook his head in disappointment.

“That’s a shame. And I suppose you did.” He looked at Marke again and happened to glance past her to see me and Morley. “Ah, that’s right, I have someone here who’d like to meet you.” Sten waved us over. Arn couldn’t see either of us with Marke in the way, so we had the element of surprise when we came into view next to Sten. 

“This is Mister Garrett,” Sten explained, gesturing to me. “He’s the one who found your horse the last time it got loose.” I nodded politely and went for the casual approach.

“More like she found me,” I said. I stuck a hand out to shake. “Name’s Garrett, like he said. Nice to meet you.” For a few moments Arn just blinked at me, then looked down at my hand. He definitely hadn’t been expecting to see me, or Morley if the quick glance Arn shot his way was any indication. Then he plastered an easygoing grin on his face and shook my hand.

“I suppose I should thank you for bringing her back,” Arn said. He looked a lot more delicate from this close up, the shape of his face almost feminine now that I got a good look at him. Definitely not the kind of person I’d expect to have a horse like that. He gave my hand one firm up and down shake and didn’t let go until I relaxed my own grip. It was like shaking hands with solid iron, strong and unyielding. You’d never be able to convince me that Arn Garrett was entirely human, not with a grip like that.

“I didn’t have much choice. She wouldn’t leave me alone.” He laughed at that and laid a hand on Marke’s shoulder. 

“Yes, she can be pretty stubborn, once she’s decided on something.” He didn’t even react when Marke leaned down and ruffled his hair. Then his eyes sharpened on me. “So is that the reason you wanted to meet me? To see just what kind of person would keep a horse like her?” Well I suppose there was no reason for beating around the bush now. It was obvious that we knew he’d been following me.

I looked over at Morley, who’d schooled his features back into a neutral expression by now. “Actually, I’d like to ask you some questions if you don’t mind.” 

“Hmm,” Arn hummed. He glanced between me and Morley and thought for a moment. “Alright. I suppose I have some time.” That was way too easy for me to feel happy about it. Arn gave Marke one more pat on the shoulder and started walking. “Walk with me.” He didn’t bother taking hold of Marke’s lead and he didn’t have to – she went trotting after him the same way she had with me and Morley yesterday.

I gave Sten a quick nod and then I was jogging to catch up with Arn. He was quicker even than Morley and had covered a fair distance already. I fell in on one side of him while Morley settled in on the other, tense and ready to grab him if he tried to run. Then I waited. I wanted to get some distance from the stable and out of sight in case we had to grab Arn and drag him back to the Dead Man. I didn’t think it would be easy, but between me and Morley we could do it. Probably. The only real problem I could see would be the horse causing a fuss. 

“So, you had questions?” Arn asked, breaking the silence. He didn’t seem too concerned with the fact that we had him boxed in. I suppose having a horse like Marke at your back would give anybody a lot more confidence. Or maybe he’d been the one to mess with our memories after all? Maybe he was confident because he thought he could just do whatever he’d done before to get rid of us.

“A few,” I agreed. I considered briefly where to start. “You the one that’s been following me around?”

“Would you believe me if I said no?” he wondered.

“No,” I told him bluntly. He laughed.

“Yes, it was me.” This was too easy. I kept looking for a sign that he was about to pull some trick. When I couldn’t find anything on him I searched the street around us. I didn’t find anything out of place there either.

“Why?” That was the real question I wanted answered. I’d already been pretty sure he was my tail, and I knew that the Avites were involved in some fashion, and that they’d probably been caught in whatever had erased mine and Morley’s memories, since no one there had grabbed me yesterday. The reason behind Tinnie’s mood might have still been a mystery to me but she’d given me some solid information about the tail end of the time I was missing. 

Arn looked pensive, staring off at nothing with an almost melancholy expression when I looked back. “I guess you could say I was feeling a little bit nostalgic,” he told me. What was that supposed to mean? I shared a look with Morley over Arn’s head.

“What?” I asked him. Arn shook his head, visibly coming back to himself. 

“How much do you remember?” he asked me instead of answering, looking at Morley to include him in the question too. It made Morley visibly uncomfortable and I wondered just how much he remembered that he hadn’t told me about. I bet the Dead Man knew. That might have stung if the Dead Man couldn’t go rooting around in people’s heads like I knew he could.

“I know you were following me before ,” I said. I didn’t want to give away how little information I actually had. Let him assume I knew more than I really did. “And that I hired somebody to try tracking you down, but it didn’t work. That the Avites grabbed me.” Arn was watching me as I talked and I watched him right back. I felt a weird tingle on the back of my neck, like a bug crawling across my skin or the phantom touch of a hand. My shoulder twitched involuntarily in an attempt to dislodge whatever it was. Arn must have found whatever he was looking for in my expression because he let out a quiet laugh, shutting his eyes and shaking his head with a soft smile. 

“So stubborn,” he said, looking ahead of us. “With your reputation, I should have seen this coming.” Me and Morley both tensed up at that. It felt like this was leading up to a fight, and I didn’t like how calm Arn was about being caught. It stank of having something up his sleeve that he was sure would get him out of this. But Arn didn’t make a move and nobody came pouring onto the street ahead of us. Even the horse was the calmest I’d seen it yet, placidly lumbering along behind Arn.

“If you’ve heard of me, you know I’m not going to stop until I get some answers,” I told him. I was proud of how confident my voice sounded. It didn’t betray a hint of how on edge I was. 

“Of course,” Arn replied. “But this isn’t the place for that. Perhaps you and Mr. Dotes have someplace more suitable?” Why was this so easy? My first thought was of course my house, where the Dead Man could work his magic and make sure we were getting the real story. I had the feeling Arn wouldn’t go for that though. And getting him there might not do much if he’d been the one to mess with all our memories. Me and Morley had the amulets Handsome had given us, but who knew what kind of tricks he could work on the Dead Man? I shared a look with Morley and raised an eyebrow. He didn’t seem too enthused about whatever he got from that.

“We can talk at the Palms,” Morley finally said. “It’s early enough that we’ll have some privacy.” I wasn’t so sure about going back to the Palms yet. It was almost guaranteed we’d be in Morley’s office, and that was way too close to his private room and the memory of yesterday morning for my comfort. The last thing I wanted was to jog loose more bits of mine and Morley’s time together while we were trying to interrogate Arn, but beggars couldn’t be choosers I guess. Maybe that’s why Morley seemed less than pleased about offering up the Palms too.

“That should do nicely,” Arn smiled and clapped his hands together, “Lead the way!” His enthusiasm for the idea wasn’t inspiring any confidence in me. I shot Morley a frown over Arn’s head, but he wasn’t looking at me. Instead he examined Arn’s face with a tilted head, clearly working something over in his head. When he did finally glance at me it wasn’t for longer than a few seconds. His face was still thoughtful when he took the lead and turned us towards the Palms.

“This way,” he said over his shoulder. Arn didn’t hesitate to follow. I really didn’t like this. I had the persistent feeling that something was about to go catastrophically wrong, but there were no signs of what. By all appearances everything was going well. I guess that was the problem. I wasn’t used to things going this smoothly for me, in terms of cases this might have been my easiest ever when it came to the amount of actual work I’d had to do. 

There was no vindication when my instincts were proved right a few minutes later. Just the tired mental acknowledgement that my life could never be easy. We rounded a corner to find a trio of people waiting, one of them the priest I’d spoken to at the Avite temple. The other two were a couple of Brunos decked out in Avite colors and big enough to rival Saucerhead in terms of sheer size.

“You!” the priest exclaimed the moment he saw me. He looked less than happy to see me and sounded like he was reaching his wits end. Morley had come to a halt the moment he’d spotted our welcoming committee. He eyed the Brunos as he shifted his weight in anticipation of an attack and the Brunos eyed him right back. The priest only had eyes for me though, jabbing an accusing finger in my direction while he stomped closer.

“What did you do with them?” he demanded, “Who hired you? Was it the Temple of Shamgar?” I wouldn’t have been able to get a word in edgewise if I’d wanted to. He just kept going and the closer he got the tenser Morley and the other two Avites became. “I should have known you didn’t just wander in off the street!”

“What did I do with what?” I finally asked when he had to pause for breath. Tinnie said the Avites had grabbed me, but this priest sure wasn’t acting like someone who’d held me captive for any length of time. Had the Avites had their memories messed with too? I glanced at Arn and he was just watching all this play out with a small frown. The priest sputtered indignantly at my question and it took him a minute to compose himself enough to respond.

“What did you–!” he said, “Our records of Avia’s descendants! I know you took them, don’t try to–!” He abruptly cut himself off when he followed my glance and seemed to notice Arn for the first time. For a second he just looked confused, before his jaw dropped and his eyes bugged. Whatever was making him do that the Brunos didn’t seem to be in on. When they looked at Arn it wasn’t with any kind of recognition, not like how the priest was wordlessly opening and closing his mouth as he tried to summon the wherewithal to speak.

And that’s the moment when all hell really broke loose.

The ground shook under my feet as a deafening clap of thunder sounded what felt like just a few feet away. It was so loud it felt like my brain was going to vibrate right out of my skull, and all of us clapped our hands over our ears as we flinched and cringed. When I opened my eyes again there was no storm or even so much as a cloud in sight. The true source of the sound was more than clear though. A figure at the end of the street that had to be at least twenty feet tall, covered head to toe in black armor and raising a sword that didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen. 

It didn’t take very long for my brain to dredge up where I’d seen something vaguely similar this before. Even with how dazed I was I recognized one of the more popular depictions of Shamgar. A lead weight settled in the pit of my stomach as I tried to figure out why gods were throwing their weight around again, especially this one. 

Shamgar let out a roar that rattled my poor head even more and started toward us. The ground shook with his every step and I nearly lost my balance more than once. Already I was looking for an escape route and calculating how I could put as much distance between me and this whole situation as quickly as possible. Morley had shifted closer and shot me an alarmed glance. The Brunos had already cut and run, not that I could blame them. The priest had just gone pale and frozen, his mouth agape as he watched Shamgar’s menacing form approach. 

We were quickly running out of time to make an escape but I couldn’t think of any way we’d get very far. Even if Arn here  _ was _ a descendant of Avia, he was still only a demigod, and a pretty watered down one at that. Shamgar was a full-fledged god with the belief of a whole religion behind him, plus the advantage of being the size of a house with a sword that looked like it was as big as me even at this distance. 

My thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt when I felt myself being unceremoniously lifted and tossed. I flailed with a shout as I briefly flew through the air, before I landed belly-first on Marke’s back and the breath was knocked right out of me. I was just sucking air back into my lungs when someone else landed beside me with a similar lack of grace. I tried to push myself up but a second later Marke was tearing down the street, leaving me clinging to her to avoid being thrown off. Whoever was beside me was nimble enough to right themselves. When I managed to look up Morley was looking back the way we’d come. He tangled one hand in the fabric at the small of my back and used the other to grab hold of Marke’s reigns, bouncing in place even as he clung to Marke with his legs. 

“What the hell?” I demanded as I lifted my head enough to see past Morley. Marke had covered an astonishing amount of ground already; there was little to see but empty streets behind us, but I could just faintly hear a distant commotion from what I thought was the way we’d come. 

“I don’t know,” Morley admitted as he faced forward. “Arn threw us up here and then the horse bolted.” He turned wide eyes on me. “Was that–?”

“Shamgar?” I cut in during the convenient pause, “Sure looks like it.” I was jostled by every movement Marke made thanks to my unusual position. I shot Morley a look. “Any chance you could get this thing to stop? This isn’t exactly comfortable.” He nodded and pulled on the reigns. Marke didn’t seem inclined to cooperate so he pulled again. It wasn’t until he gripped the reigns with both hands and yanked harshly that she seemed to notice. Marke finally slowed, first to a trot and then to a stop when Morley kept up the pressure. She shifted uneasily in place while I carefully slid off. 

“What now?” Morley’s asked me. I frowned in the direction we’d come from. I wanted nothing to do with the Dream Quarter or its gods. Especially not when they had a reputation for beheading first and asking questions later like this one. On the other hand Arn was the best lead we had for figuring out mine and Morley’s missing time. For reasons beyond my current ability to deduce he’d tossed us onto Marke’s back and sent us off while staying behind himself. Did he intend to  _ fight _ Shamgar? If he did Arn either had one hell of a trick up his sleeve or he was just straight up crazy. There was no telling which one it was yet.

Morley was watching me still, clearly waiting for an answer. I groaned loudly as I dragged my hands down my face. “We have to go back,” I grumbled reluctantly.

“Did you hit your head when he threw you?” Morley asked incredulously. “There’s an angry god back there and you want to go back?” I wasn’t used to having to crane my neck to meet his eye. Morley was looking at me like he thought I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had, because I started climbing back up onto Marke’s back even as I answered him.

“Arn’s the only lead we have right now,” I insisted, “If we want any answers out of him we can’t let him get killed.” Morley shifted back to make room for me when it was clear I wouldn’t be dissuaded . He even let me take the reigns from him with only a mildly disgruntled expression. I could practically feel him frowning at the back of my head as I turned Marke around and started back the way we’d come.

“Please tell me you at least have a plan besides just showing up in the middle of a fight with a god,” Morley sighed. I nudged Marke’s sides with my heels and Morley grabbed hold of my waist for stability as she broke into a full gallop.

“Of course,” I lied. I could tell by the way his grip tightened that Morley wasn’t fooled for a second. 

**Author's Note:**

> So despite this being a NaNoWriMo fic and me having hit 50,000 words, it isn't actually finished yet... OTL  
> I'm hoping that starting to post it will wrangle my brain into cooperating enough to finish the last few bits that need writing, but like 80% of it IS finished, so enjoy!


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